


fraction

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 231,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21677596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: Many years ago, I wrote a fic called "A Fraction of Time," in which Nezumi was stuck at age 20 forever. Shion was 6 years old when he came into Nezumi's life, and Nezumi had been alive (and stuck at 20) by that point for a century. Years passed, Shion grew up, and Nezumi didn't - there was love, heartbreak, death, the whole shebang.A few months ago, I decided to rewrite that fic. The premise is the same, the plot is not. Whether you read the original back in the day or you've never heard of it, I hope you enjoy this one.
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 187
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A disclaimer before you carry on: I wrote this fic a few months ago and didn't finish it, then abandoned it. It's still not finished, but it's very very very long (I've already divided it into chapters - there's 37. The word count is 238,900). I plan on posting a chapter every other day. I doubt I'll ever resume or finish it, but honestly, by the time all 37 chapters are posted, a lot can change. So, if you read on, do so with that in mind. 
> 
> Also: I generally respond to comments very diligently when I'm posting a new fic, and I love chatting with you guys, especially those I've been talking with through these comment sections for years. But I've recently started a new job on top of my old job, and my time is now limited, so I will not be so diligent or responsive (at least until I get more into the swing of things at work). I apologize in advance, but please do keep leaving comments! They really mean a lot to me, and honestly, they are the reason I still post these absurd fics. 

The sky was white when Nezumi stepped out of his apartment building, and he squinted in the bright of it. As usual, he didn’t know what time it was, and the white wasn’t helping—no time of day looked like this, blinding and colorless.

Hand cupped over his eyes, he turned from the sky to see a moving van parked against the sidewalk, blocking his view of the theater across the street. Out the back of the moving van jumped a little kid holding a lamp upside down in one hand and a shoebox in the other.

“Careful with the lamp, honey, hold it upright!” The shout came from the back of the van.

“I am, Mom!” the kid shouted back, fidgeting with the upside-down lamp until he held it upright.

By this point he’d clambered up the stairs to the building and stood in front of Nezumi, who realized he was blocking the building’s entrance. Nezumi opened the door for the kid, figuring he could be a friendly neighbor just this once and hoping this kid wasn’t moving into the apartment across his own that had just been vacated a week before. Kids were loud, a nuisance.

“What apartment number are you moving into?” Nezumi asked, cutting off the kid’s _Thank you!_

The kid stopped just before walking through the door Nezumi held open. “Are you asking me that because you’re a pedophile?” the kid asked.

Nezumi couldn’t figure out how old the kid was—he’d never been good at guessing ages. Still, the kid looked too young to know a word like pedophile.

“What if I am?” Nezumi asked, figuring he might as well amuse himself. He might have been making himself late to rehearsal, but he was never on time anyway. It was hard to be on time when he didn’t own any clocks, and those he did buy never had a long lifespan.

“Then you should be informed that I know martial arts. I could kick your butt if you tried anything,” the kid said, after seeming to think the question over for a bit.

“I don’t believe you. And it’s rude to accuse people who are doing favors for you of being pedophiles,” Nezumi replied, nodding at the door he was still holding open. “You gonna walk through the doorway or make me hold it open all day?”

“Oh, hello.”

Nezumi turned from the kid to see a woman that had to be his mother—she had the same wide brown eyes and brown hair, though hers was longer than the kid’s unkempt shag and pulled back into a low ponytail. She was young, another age Nezumi couldn’t guess, but he knew enough that she looked around the age people assumed Nezumi was—mid-twenties.

The women was holding a large cardboard box, the side of which was marked “KITCHEN” in neat Sharpie letters.

“Do you live in this building?” the woman said, shuffling the box against her hip so that she could free an arm from underneath it to extend to Nezumi. The box rattled, kitchen supplies presumably jostling inside it.

Nezumi shook her hand only because she was pretty, and he wasn’t sure he’d mind her as a neighbor after all. “Yeah, third floor.”

“Oh, same! We’re moving into number—”

“Six,” Nezumi finished. “It’s across from me, figured someone had to be moving in soon.”

“Careful, Mom, he might be a pedophile. I asked, and he evaded the question,” the kid said, still not having walked through the door Nezumi was holding.

“Shion! I’m sorry, he says more than he should most of the time,” the woman said. Her hand was still in Nezumi’s, though she quickly slipped it free as the box she held slid an inch down her hip.

“Let me,” Nezumi said, letting his boot hold the door as he reached out, took the box from the woman.

“Thank you! And I’m Karan, I meant to say that. Did I say that?”

“You didn’t say that,” the kid piped.

“Shion, hon, go head up, we’re floor three number six,” Karan said, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear as Nezumi settled the box in his arms. It was heavier than Karan had made it look.

“I don’t have the key!” the kid complained.

Karan fished into her jeans pocket and offered a key to Shion, who took it and bolted away with a last look at Nezumi.

“Sorry about him, he’s harmless. He reads a lot, knows more than he should. I’m sure you’re not a pedophile,” Karan said quickly, glancing at Nezumi, who was used to such glances, used to flustering women.

He shrugged. “It’s a good thing he’s wary. At least you know he won’t get in a stranger’s car.”

Karan smiled, a nice smile that disappeared too quickly as she bit her bottom lip, then glanced back at the moving truck. “I don’t know if you were leaving or getting back from somewhere, but if have nowhere to go right now, we could use some help unloading. It’s just a few boxes, but I don’t have any movers—Of course, I should have gotten movers, I know that, and you’re under no obligation, but I felt I should ask or else—”

“I have nowhere to go,” Nezumi replied, shifting the weight of the box against his chest. This wasn’t true. He had rehearsal, but maybe the white of the sky meant it was early, that he had time to kill to help this neighbor with her wide eyes slipping quickly over his face and warm smile that reappeared at his words.

Nezumi was not usually at a shortage of sexual partners, and he never had to lug boxes to get one if he was in the mood, but it’d been a while since he’d done anything but read in his apartment or go to work across the street or pick up someone from a bar. The change in pace was nice—a relief, really. Something different to stop today from blending into all the others, into all the previous days and weeks and months and years and decades—how many had it been?

Nezumi didn’t want to count them, and this, at least, could distract him for an afternoon, or morning, or whatever time it was—Nezumi hated keeping track.

*

The day after moving in the neighbors, Nezumi woke to a knock on his door.

He sat up in bed, reached to his nightstand before remembering he’d smashed his previous clock some days ago. He lugged himself out of bed and stopped at the bathroom to gaze blearily at sleepiness of his own eyes and the dried drool on his lips that he wiped with his palm before going to the front door.

“Oh, did we wake you?”

It was Karan and at her side her son, who was holding another box, smaller than the cardboard boxes. It was pale blue, and the lid of it said in cursive dark blue lettering, _Karan’s._

“No, I was awake,” Nezumi replied.

“You have a pillow crease on your cheek,” the kid chirped up. “And you’re not wearing pants. It’s noon, should you be sleeping so late?”

“Shion,” Karan said, nudging his shoulder.

“You don’t let me sleep that late,” Shion told her. “You say only bums sleep past the sun.” The kid turned back to Nezumi as his mother protested. “We’re bakers, we get up earlier than the sun, even.”

“Great for you,” Nezumi replied, rubbing at his cheek and feeling the crease.

“We’re sorry to wake you, we just wanted to say thank you properly for helping us yesterday, it really was such a great help.” Karan nudged Shion again, who extended his hands and the box he held.

Nezumi took the box, resisting the urge to peek inside.

“It’s cherry pie. It’s my favorite, and I helped make it,” the kid said.

Nezumi looked at the kid’s grin. It was the same as his mother’s to the point where it was almost creepy. He looked back at Karan and nodded. “Thanks.”

“Well, we’re going to start working on the bakery now, getting it set up and all. If you want to drop by, see the place or anything, I gave you the address yesterday.”

“Right,” Nezumi agreed, trying to remember if he’d left the scrap of paper Karan had scribbled on the night before in his jeans pocket or taken it out and put it somewhere.

“Don’t you have a job? It’s Monday,” the kid said.

“Shion!”

“Don’t you have school?” Nezumi retorted.

“It’s summer vacation,” the kid replied, as if this should have been obvious to Nezumi who had no reason to care about the scheduling of school vacations.

“Maybe we’ll see you later then,” Karan said, smiling again and taking Shion’s hand.

“Bye, Nezumi!” Shion called behind him as Karan led him away.

Nezumi squinted at the kid’s back, not quite able to remember when he’d told his neighbors his name, although it must have happened at some point the day before as he’d helped them move.

He took the box into his kitchen—just a few steps from the front door—set it on the counter, and opened it to see, indeed, a cherry pie. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had cherry pie. It was clearly freshly baked, and the moment the box was open the smell of it filled Nezumi’s apartment. He breathed in deep, startled by the goodness of the smell and his own sudden craving to use his hands to eat it immediately even though he’d never had much of a sweet tooth.

Nezumi didn’t use his hands. He got a plate and fork and made tea, watching his kettle as he stared at the pie until finally it was whistling, and he poured a mugfull. He cut the pie then, a generous slice, and slid it onto his plate. The pie looked perfect, like something out of a commercial for pies. He hadn’t known real pies could look like this, flawless.

He had a forkful of pie piled on his fork but didn’t eat it, just stood in his kitchen, one hand wrapped around his mug to catch the tea’s warm in his palm and the other holding his fork. It was a long time since he’d tried something new, something he hadn’t ever tried before. Maybe, in fact, he had tried cherry pie once and he just couldn’t remember. It was impossible to keep all his memories after so many years—years Nezumi hated to count and wished he could lose track of but never managing to forget. After just over a hundred years, Nezumi couldn’t remember every moment, every food he’d ever eaten.

But cherry pie was something decadent, and Nezumi doubted he’d had it. If he had, he hoped he wouldn’t remember. He wanted this bite to taste like the first time—it was a rarity for Nezumi to have any firsts anymore. A century had a way of making everything old and stale and too familiar.

*

A full pie later, Nezumi could not move. He lay on his mattress, half in and out of sleep, until there was another knock on his door.

Twice in a day, unless it was already tomorrow. The blinds were closed, and Nezumi had sun-blocking curtains so that he couldn’t keep track of the earth’s rotation at all.

Again, Nezumi hauled himself out of bed, clutching his stomach and making his way to the front door. He knew before opening it that it would be his new neighbors—never before had there been anyone to knock on his door.

“Have you been inside all day? And still not put on pants yet?”

It was just the kid. Shion. Nezumi squinted at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“My mom sent me.” 

“Why?” Nezumi asked, when the kid didn’t elaborate. Nezumi didn’t have patience. His stomach churned. He shouldn’t have eaten the whole pie. It’d been so good, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything like it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted _more_ of something, the last time something hadn’t tired him, bored him.

“You don’t look good,” the kid said.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to say anything at all if you’ve got nothing nice to say?” Nezumi muttered, considering closing the door on the kid’s face. He held onto the doorframe with one hand and clutched his stomach with the other, feeling movement within it through the barrier of his t-shirt.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I meant—”

Nezumi didn’t bother to stick around to hear what the kid meant. He unlatched his hand from the doorframe and all but bolted to his kitchen, just making it to the sink to vomit into it, the taste of sweet cherries now mixed with his own bile.

“Told you.”

Nezumi clutched both sides of the sink, hunched over it with his head lowered. He was aware that the kid’s voice was right beside him, but he didn’t bother unearthing his head from the sink to glare at him or tell him to get out of his apartment.

Instead, he groaned into the mess of his vomit, then breathed in too deeply and vomited more.

“Shit,” he hissed, when that round was done. He turned on the sink without lifting his head so that the stream of the faucet caught the ends of his bangs where they fell like a curtain over his forehead. He let go of the sink with one hand to tuck the loose hairs behind his ears.

“Did you eat all the pie at once? Aren’t you an adult? What kind of adult eats an entire pie at one time?”

“Why are you still here?” Nezumi muttered before tilting his lips to the faucet stream to rinse his mouth. He swished the water around his mouth then spit it back into the sink before lifting his head up and pulling the faucet head free so he could direct its stream at all corners of the sink.

When he was done this rudimentary cleaning, he turned to see the kid hovering by his legs, looking concerned.

“How do you feel?” the kid asked.

“Annoyed by your persistent presence.” 

“Why did you eat an entire pie in one sitting?”

“Did I ask for your running commentary? Why are you here again?”

“My mom sent me to ask if you wanted to have dinner at our place, but I don’t think you should eat any more for today other than crackers or toast.”

Nezumi wiped the back of his palm over his wet lips. “Thanks for your expert medical opinion. Tell your mom I’ll take a rain check.”

The kid lingered where he was, looking like he had no intentions of getting lost and staring up at Nezumi with his big brown eyes. He was six years old. He’d told Nezumi so the day Nezumi carried the boxes of his and his mother’s possessions into their apartment across from Nezumi’s.

Six years old. The same age as Nezumi’s little sister—at least, the age she’d been a hundred years ago, the age she’d been when she died, the last age she’d ever been able to be.

But this kid, this Shion, he’d be allowed to age, to grow up. Unlike Nezumi’s sister. Unlike Nezumi himself.

The kid just kept staring, and then he stepped back from Nezumi, and again, and then he stood in Nezumi’s doorway, still facing Nezumi, still looking at him with those wide eyes.

“Feel better, Nezumi,” Shion said, sounding too genuine, too worried for Nezumi when all Nezumi had done was eaten too much pie, all he had was a stomachache, there was nothing else wrong with him, there was nothing else he could get better from.

“Close the door when you leave,” Nezumi said, turning away from Shion before the door clicked and Nezumi knew the kid was gone.

*

Nezumi decided the day of the pie that he’d do his best to avoid his neighbor’s son, but this proved impossible when he started helping Karan set up her bakery, so he amended his decision to avoid being around the neighbor’s son alone. He’d never liked children, and Shion was an odd one. When Shion looked at Nezumi, it was with a searching sort of look, curious and wide-eyed and not a gaze Nezumi had any desire to be under. But his attempts to avoid alone time with the strange kid ended a month after the neighbors moved in.

The trouble started with another knock on Nezumi’s door. He was reading a script he’d memorized decades ago at his kitchen table when the knock came, a soft knock that Nezumi knew by then had to be Karan’s. Shion knocked louder, hard and fast like every time he came to Nezumi’s door, it was with some emergency, when really it was only ever to invite him over for dinner, invites Nezumi always declined.

Nezumi slid his script book to the center of the table and stood up, went to his door.

“Nezumi, hi, are you busy? I just had a quick thing to ask you.”

Karan had a smudge of flour on her neck, the left side. She wore a t-shirt and jeans, both items of which had also suffered dustings of flour. She smelled sweet, like cinnamon and fruit.

“For the bakery?” Nezumi asked, wondering what more there was to do. He’d been helping Karan set her place up for the past month, and just the night before, as they’d wiped down the windows of the bakery, she’d told him it was the last task before she could open.

“Well, yes, but—no, actually…” Karan blinked at him, a crease between her eyes. She seemed nervous, which she never had been previously whenever she asked Nezumi if he wanted to stop by to help in that day’s bakery renovation. 

“Want to come in?” Nezumi asked, when Karan still left her sentence unfinished. He opened the door wider and stepped back from her. “Tea?”

“Yes, that would be great actually, thank you.”

Nezumi went to the kitchen to fill his kettle with water, watching out the sides of his eyes as Karan leaned against the counter, then stopped leaning, then wiped her palms over the flat stomach of her t-shirt, then fidgeted with her hair.

He turned from the kettle after setting it on the stove and stepped to the side of the stove top before leaning back against the counter himself. “What’s up?”

Karan looked around his kitchen, her eyes landing on his script book. “Is _Hamlet_ your next play?”

“Auditions are tomorrow.”

“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt your practicing—”

“It’s fine, I’ve got the play memorized. Done it a few times before,” Nezumi said, waving a hand.

“The thing is,” Karan said, still looking at the script book, “I know that we’re really strangers. We’re just neighbors, I know that, and I don’t mean to keep interfering in your life or asking you for favors. I say that, but the number of things you’ve already done for me, for the bakery—I hate to take up more of your time, to keep asking you for more—”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to,” Nezumi cut in.

Karan shook her head slightly at the script book as if rejecting Nezumi’s words. What she didn’t understand was Nezumi had too much time. Infinite time. Why not help the neighbor arrange some tables and chairs? Why not install a new oven in her bakery’s kitchen, or paint the front room a bright yellow after first painting it with primer? What else was Nezumi going to do with his time, all his time? He hated it, he wanted to give it away, why not to his neighbor, the first person who’d ever knocked on his apartment door when Nezumi had been living in this apartment for years, so many years, he couldn’t stand to count them but that didn’t stop them from adding up on their own.

“It’s just—and I wouldn’t normally ask this of you, but Shion asked me if I would, and I can never say no to him, I know that’s silly of me—”

“Karan, just tell me,” Nezumi said, having to raise his voice as the kettle beside him started to whistle.

Karan’s eyes—the same wide as her son’s, though somehow less unsettling—lifted to his. “You know the bakery was supposed to open next week.”

Nezumi nodded when she paused, thinking she was waiting for his response.

“I only just found out,” Karan said, “a man stopped by the bakery last night after you left. Before I can open it for business, I have to get a special certification, a food service license. Of course, I have one, but that one’s only valid for Hakone. I didn’t realize Tokyo would need a different license, which I should have looked into, I feel so stupid, the opening of the bakery will have to be moved back a whole month—”

Nezumi turned from her to grab mugs as she spoke, dropped a tea bag into each and poured the steaming water over them. He took the mugs to the table, where Karan followed, collapsing onto a chair.

“—and they won’t just give me a new license, I have to take the test all over again, the Tokyo test this time of course, and they won’t let me take the test unless I sit in on the seminars, and that’s a few hours each weekday for a month, and Shion’s only six, he says he can be home alone and take care of himself, and really he is mature for his age, but even so, I just don’t feel comfortable—”

“You want me to babysit.” Nezumi cut off her rambling, cupping his hands around his own mug to mirror Karan across the table from him.

Her gaze was on her mug until it slipped again to the script book laid between her and Nezumi. “I know you work at the theater, and now with a new play just starting, your hours are probably even more demanding. I can get someone else, of course, that’s what I’ll do. But Shion wanted me to ask you, that’s the only reason I’m asking, I wouldn’t be asking otherwise,” she said quickly.

She wasn’t usually so talkative, and to hear her excess of speech made Nezumi think of her son. Maybe he got his rambling from her after all.

“What time are the seminars?” Nezumi asked, not knowing why he was asking because of course he was not going to babysit a kid, especially not his neighbor with his intrusive gaze and constant questions. He had no idea why Shion would even ask for him as a babysitter. When had Nezumi given the kid the impression that he might be a decent caretaker of any sort?

“From eight to noon each day. I’ll pay you, of course, that goes without saying. And not just pastries and cakes,” Karan added, smiling sheepishly.

“I like your pastries and cakes,” Nezumi said back. For as much as the knocks on his door signaled Karan coming to ask for another favor with the bakery, they just as frequently signaled Shion delivering another box of baked goods. _Mom says thanks for helping her hang the curtains!_ the kid would chirp, then try to sneak his way in with an excuse like, _You’re not going to eat this all at once, are you? Like you did with the pie? If you want, I can help you eat it so you’re not tempted to eat it all yourself. I don’t mind._

Nezumi always shut the door on the kid’s face after accepting the bakery box. He had no idea how such an action could be interpreted as good babysitter material.

“I could find someone else. A babysitter,” Karan said, lifting her mug to her lips but not taking a sip.

Nezumi lifted his own mug. Looked at Karan across the top of it. The tea was hot through the ceramic and hurt his palms. He imagined the skin of them turning red. Burning through. He knew the smell of burning flesh more than anything, even though it’d been a century since he’d smelled it.

He lowered his mug without sipping. The tea would still be too hot anyway.

“I can do it,” he said.

Karan lowered her mug as well. Shook her head. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s no problem.”

“It’s too much.” 

“Did you come here to ask me to babysit your son or convince me out of it?” Nezumi countered, sighing, exhausted suddenly, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.

Karan just looked at him, and it was the same look Shion would often give Nezumi. A look that saw too much. Nezumi wanted to break her gaze but refused to let himself.

“I’ve heard about you,” she said softly. “Even before we moved here, I knew who you were.”

She was twenty-seven. Nezumi knew only because she mentioned once—while they painted primer over the walls of her bakery beside each other, Nezumi with the roller and Karan using a small brush at the edge of the floor’s molding—that she wanted to be a world-famous chef. That she had gone to culinary school after high school, that she had gotten pregnant in her last year, that she had dropped out before she got her degree to care for her son because the father was out of the picture and she didn’t have money to pay anyone else to care for him.

“I never regretted it. I discovered baking. I discovered the rest of my life. I was only twenty-one, I thought I was too young to be a mother, to be a good one anyway. But there is no path that could have made me happier,” Karan had said that day, looking up from her crouch at Nezumi, a speck of paint on her left ear.

Nezumi had done the math. If Shion was six, she was twenty-seven. Older then Nezumi’s age on his ID, but his ID was wrong anyway. It said he was twenty-five, but he wasn’t. He was one hundred and eight. He didn’t mean to count the years, but of course he did. He couldn’t stop.

“Who am I?” he asked Karan now in response to her _I knew who you were_. He never talked about it with anyone. People noticed. He hadn’t moved out of his apartment, and he’d had the same job at the same theater for a century. His first production manager was the first to know and marketed it. _Eternal Eve—Proof that beauty never ages!_ Like it was a good thing. Like it was something to be amazed by.

“You don’t know?” Karan asked. Her features were soft. She had kind eyes. Nezumi was over a century old and he had never gotten the hang of other people, of getting to know them, of wanting to know them. He didn’t know why his neighbor was different.

Nezumi shook his head.

“You won’t tell me how old you are if I ask.”

“No,” Nezumi agreed.

Karan nodded. She took a sip of her tea and didn’t wince, which Nezumi took to mean it wasn’t hot enough to burn, but he didn’t try his yet. “When I told my friends I was moving to Tokyo, they told me I had to see one of your shows. They told me all about you. Eternal Eve.”

“Beauty never ages,” Nezumi said, and Karan smiled lightly.

“I never imagined you’d be my neighbor.”

Nezumi traced the rim of his mug with his fingertip. “Have to live somewhere.”

“I didn’t tell Shion,” Karan added.

Nezumi shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“You don’t have to babysit him. He likes you. He thinks you’re very mysterious and cool. And he likes that you have long hair, he’s asked me if he can grow his out.” Karan laughed softly.

“I am mysterious and cool,” Nezumi said, liking when Karan laughed louder, giving her the time to do so before saying, “I’ll babysit him, Karan. It’s a few hours a day. I’m not doing anything anyway.”

“You have rehearsals.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve done _Hamlet_?” Nezumi asked.

“How many times?” Karan asked, leaning forward, her smile light on her lips. She was twenty-seven, but she seemed older. Younger. Nezumi didn’t know. He was terrible with ages. He wished no one had ages at all. He wished everyone was like him, ageless, immortal, stuck. Even more, he wished he was like everyone else, fragile, temporary, dead.

“Too many to count,” Nezumi told Karan, standing up. He found his neighbor calming and distressing all at once. He didn’t know what to think. He’d never had a friend before. The realization came as a shock. He’d never had a friend before and he didn’t know how to do it now, he didn’t know if that was what this was.

He walked to the door, knowing Karan would follow, hearing her chair legs scrape the tile of his kitchen floor behind him. He opened the door and turned, and Karan was there, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Thank you, Nezumi.” She was familiar. That was what it was, Nezumi realized. Something about her reminded him of someone else, someone he couldn’t remember, someone from long, long ago.

“Tell him it’ll take too long,” Nezumi told her after she’d walked out his door.

Karan turned around. “What?”

“To grow his hair as long as mine. Tell Shion it takes too long. He’s better off keeping it short.”

Karan blinked at him. “I’ll tell him,” she said, finally, and Nezumi nodded before closing the door on her.

He went back to the kitchen table, sat in the chair he’d vacated, pulled his script back toward him, and took sip of his tea. It was cold now. He always ended up drinking his tea cold. He always waited a little too long, unable to get the timing right. By now, he’d have thought, he should have known how long it took for tea to be just warm enough. After so many years, it was stupid not to know.

*

Nezumi babysat Shion at his neighbor’s apartment instead of his own. He didn’t trust the kid not to ricochet around his apartment and cause destruction of the kind only children were capable.

He was not used to waking before eight and had to buy an alarm clock to ensure he’d be up and decent enough to go next door in time before Karan had to leave. The first morning, the alarm scared the shit out of him, and Nezumi chucked the clock against his wall before remembering he’d only just bought it and he’d need it for the days to come. He cursed, hauling himself out of bed and into his bathroom to brush his teeth, dunking his face under the faucet to wake himself up before pulling on jeans and a t-shirt and leaving his apartment. He hoped Karan had coffee.

He stood in front of the neighbor’s door, then knocked, and almost immediately it was opened.

“Hi!” Karan said. She looked too cheerful for so early in the morning.

Nezumi wiped his hair out of his eyes. His bangs were damp from ducking his face in the sink. “Hey.” His voice sounded distorted, garbled and thick with sleep still.

Karan smiled. “Not a morning person, I see. Come in, come in, I made coffee.”

“Thank god,” Nezumi muttered, sliding past her and heading straight to her kitchen, which was easy as the layout of her apartment was identical to his.

In the kitchen, like in his own, was a round table, and at that round table was Shion, clearly showered by the look of his wet hair and dressed and shoving a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.

“Mmm-mm!” he said to Nezumi, unintelligible.

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” Nezumi told him. He started opening cupboards, searching for mugs.

“Second left,” Karan said from behind him.

“I said, morning!” Shion said, presumably after he’d swallowed.

Nezumi chose a mug that said World’s Best Mom only because the alternative was a mug that said World’s Best Son.

“Bye, honey, you be good and don’t make life too difficult for Nezumi, okay?”

Nezumi turned in time to see Karan stooping down to kiss Shion’s forehead. He turned away and poured himself coffee.

“There’s cream in the fridge,” Karan said.

“I’m fine.”

“And help yourself to anything else in there. I’ll be back no later than twelve-thirty, and I left my number on the fridge. Shion has a phone—”

“Why don’t you have a phone? All adults have phones,” Shion said, pointing a fork heaped with pancakes at Nezumi. Nezumi looked at him only long enough to glare.

“Nothing should happen, but just in case, the nearest hospital is—”

“Karan, we’ll be fine. Go to your class before you’re late,” Nezumi interrupted.

It took another five minutes, but Nezumi finally coaxed Karan to leave after she said _Goodbye!_ and _I love you!_ to Shion so many times one would have thought she was going off to war rather than leaving for a four-hour class that she’d have to go to daily.

When she finally left, Nezumi shut the door behind her, cutting off her last, _I’ll be home soon!_ and returned to the kitchen to collapse, exhausted, at the table across from Shion. 

“She doesn’t leave me alone very often,” Shion explained, pouring more syrup on his pancakes.

“Should you be eating so much syrup?”

“Are you really going to give me nutrition advice after you ate an entire pie in one sitting?”

“Hey, I’m the babysitter here, and you’re the baby. Show some respect,” Nezumi snapped, chugging the rest of his coffee and wiping the back of his hand over his lips.

Shion said nothing, merely watched Nezumi as he continued to shove food into his mouth. Nezumi watched him back, realizing probably too late that he had no idea how to keep children alive and hoping Shion was more or less self-sufficient. For a six-year-old, he seemed mature for his age.

“What grade are you going into?” Nezumi asked.

“I start grade three in April.”

“Grade three? Aren’t you six?”

“Yes. I started grade one a year early, and then halfway through the year they put me in grade two, so now I’m going into grade three.”

Nezumi stared at him. “What, so you’re some kind of genius?”

“I just like to read,” Shion mumbled, pulling his fork through at the puddle of syrup on his plate.

Nezumi leaned back in his chair, considering this. “What do you like to read?”

“Textbooks. Mathematics and science mostly. Sometimes older kids donate their old textbooks to the library.”

“Textbooks? What about literature?” 

“I like facts, learning about things that are real,” Shion said, picking up his plate and taking it to the sink.

Nezumi watched his back as Shion washed his dishes. Definitely a weird kid.

“Things in literature are real too,” Nezumi said, once Shion turned the faucet off and loaded his dishes in the drying rack.

“No, they’re not. It’s fiction. By definition, not fact.”

Nezumi rolled his eyes and stood up. “That’s it, you need an education. You got a library card?” 

Shion squinted at him. “Yes.”

“Get it and let’s go. And grab a jacket, I don’t need you getting sick.”

“It’s sixty-five degrees!”

“I don’t care, hurry up,” Nezumi said, snapping his fingers.

While Shion disappeared down the hall to where Nezumi assumed his bedroom was—Nezumi’s, too was down the hall in his apartment—Nezumi left and went to his own apartment, leaving the doors of both apartments open so he could hear if Shion tripped and fell or had some other mishap while left unsupervised.

In his apartment, Nezumi quickly grabbed his wallet and shoved his feet in his boots. He was back in his neighbor’s apartment retying his ponytail when Shion emerged from the hallway wearing a winter coat so thick it doubled the kid’s body mass.

“I’m ready,” Shion said, his hands in his pockets.

“Is this a joke?” Nezumi asked, and immediately Shion’s serious face split into a wide-mouthed laugh.

Nezumi watched the kid stand there and laugh at his stupid prank, and then he was shedding his coat, though he seemed to be having difficulty as he kept falling into renewed laughing fits.

“You really think you’re funny, don’t you?” Nezumi asked, watching as the kid struggled to put on his shoes, still out of breath.

“That was funny,” Shion wheezed.

“You should do something about your sense of humor, it needs work,” Nezumi replied, letting Shion lead them out the door and stop to lock it behind them before leading them to the stairs.

The library was a ten-minute walk from their building, during which Shion chattered continuously and Nezumi mostly tried to tune him out, considering what books a six-year-old could handle that were still decent.

“Do you know what sex is?” Nezumi asked, as they stood on the sidewalk across the street from the library waiting for the light to change.

Shion stopped midsentence of whatever he was saying. “Should you be asking me that? I’m a kid.”

“I’m asking you so I know what books are appropriate for you.”

“Books with sex aren’t appropriate for me.”

“But do you know what it is?”

The light changed, and Shion grabbed Nezumi’s hand before walking across the street. It had caught Nezumi off guard the first street they crossed, but he didn’t pull his hand away. Shion’s fingers were warm and tiny, but his grip was surprisingly firm. Nezumi couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever held anyone’s hand.

Safely across the sidewalk, Shion released Nezumi’s hand again. “I know what it is,” he finally said.

“You just don’t want to read about it.”

“I _shouldn’t_ read about it.”

“You always do what you should do?” Nezumi countered, and Shion looked him then, his small face surprised.

“Of course,” he said, like it’d never occurred to him to do otherwise, and Nezumi realized it probably hadn’t.

The library doors slid open for them, and the library itself was cool in a way that was a relief. Immediately, Nezumi felt relaxed, and only then did he realize the kid had made him tense, all that hand holding and all the questions. He didn’t know how to act around children. It’d been a century since he’d been around children, since it was his job to protect a child, and he’d failed at it. He’d been a child himself, but still, that was no excuse.

“Are you all right?”

Nezumi flinched at the touch on his arm, and Shion quickly took his hand away.

“Fine. The good stuff is this way.” Nezumi led Shion to the fiction shelves. He breathed deep, feeling better the deeper he walked into the library. The blue carpet muffled the steps of his boots, and the few people standing in shelves or reading at tables spoke in whispers if they spoke at all. The smell was a good kind of musty, a book kind of musty.

As Nezumi led Shion through the aisle of Ga-Ji, he looked down to see Shion’s fingers trailing on the spines of books they passed. When he stopped, Shion stopped too, looking at the books in front of him and touching more of their spines carefully, like he was picking fruit at a market and wanted to be sure to choose ones without bruises.

Nezumi stopped looking at Shion to search the spines himself, not touching them until he saw the one he wanted. He plucked it out and held it for Shion. “This one.”

“ _Lord of the Flies,_ ” Shion read.

“It’s about little boys like you, so you should like it. You heard of it?”

“No,” Shion said, taking the book from Nezumi. “Are you sure it’s not about flies?” 

“Nope. Let’s go check it out.”

Shion looked up from the cover he’d been inspecting, his fingers tracing the face of the boy on the cover as if he was incapable of looking without touching. “That’s it? Shouldn’t we get more?”

“Read this one first, then you can tell me if you like it, and we’ll go from there,” Nezumi said, heading out the aisle and turning behind him to make sure Shion was following.

Nezumi recognized the old woman at the check-out desk and smiled at her when she looked up from her computer at him.

“Nezumi, what a treat! I didn’t even think you were awake before noon.”

“Very funny, Hinata.”

“You know the librarians?” Shion whispered, and Hinata’s eyes slipped down to Nezumi’s side.

“Don’t tell me you’re a father,” she said, adjusting her glasses.

“A babysitter,” Nezumi said.

Shion slid his book across the counter with his library card on top of it. “Just this one, please, and this is my card too.”

“He’s just darling,” Hinata whispered to Nezumi.

Nezumi contemplated Shion, who stood with his fingers still curled over the edge of the counter, which was as high as his chin. Shion seemed to sense he was being looked at and turned his gaze from his careful watch of Hinata scanning his book to cast his wide eyes on Nezumi.

Nezumi turned away from him. Hinata slipped the receipt in the book.

“Due April second,” she said.

“Thank you!” Shion chirped.

“Oh!” Hinata cooed, her hand over her heart, gazing longingly at Shion before looking back at Nezumi. “Just darling,” she repeated.

“Mmm,” Nezumi hummed, nodding at her before pushing Shion’s shoulder gently to lead him away. “Let’s get out of here before she eats you,” he said quietly, when they were a few steps from the desk.

“Don’t be ridiculous. People find children cute all the time.”

“One of life’s real mysteries,” Nezumi replied, holding the door open for Shion, as the kid had both his arms clutched around his book, hugging it to his chest securely as if he was worried about dropping it.

“It’s an evolutionary benefit of our species. Finding children cute makes adults more inclined to care for them so they can grow older without being killed by predators and continue the human race.”

Nezumi just looked at Shion, who was squinting up at the sky, so Nezumi did too. He saw nothing but sunlight, certainly nothing interesting enough to be squinting at.

“You’re a bit of a freak, aren’t you?” Nezumi asked, as they crossed the street again and Shion unlatched an arm from his book to grasp onto Nezumi’s hand.

“That’s mean to say.”

“But it’s true.”

“It’s not like you’re normal either,” Shion replied.

Shion didn’t elaborate, switching topics instead to discuss his predictions for the plot of _Lord of the Flies_ , and Nezumi was relieved for it. Shion was right—Nezumi wasn’t normal—and maybe Shion knew that, had heard about him. It wasn’t like Nezumi was a secret, it wasn’t like he hadn’t been a tourist attraction when his old manager first realized he didn’t age, it wasn’t like he hadn’t read newspaper articles about himself and spent some time avoiding reporters until even they grew tired of Nezumi’s unfathomable existence, until even that became old news. Everything grew old—except Nezumi.

But all morning with Shion, for what had to be the first time in decades, Nezumi’d been so distracted with the strangeness of babysitting this bizarre kid that he’d forgotten he wasn’t normal. And he didn’t care to remember any time soon.

*

Babysitting Shion soon became a routine, as all things will do with enough time. Nezumi couldn’t manage to stop smashing his clocks and asked Karan if she’d be able to knock on his door in the mornings when he needed to come over. She agreed without questions, and the look she gave Nezumi was a knowing one.

Unlike Karan, her son never attempted to swallow his questions. He had thoughts about everything, and while Nezumi had previously thought of reading as a universal solitary and silent activity, Shion proved him wrong immediately and over and over again.

“Nezumi!” Shion’s shout came from the living room and was filled with panic. This had made Nezumi come running the first three times it happened, but he quickly learned Shion was melodramatic and prone to shouting at nothing at all, so Nezumi took his time recapping the jar of peanut butter and pushing his thumb along the edge of the knife to catch the peanut butter that stayed stuck on it before dropping the knife in the sink and leaving the kitchen.

The living room was right beside the kitchen, so only a few steps brought Nezumi in view of Shion, who was standing on the couch.

“Get off the couch,” Nezumi said before sticking his thumb in his lips to lick off the peanut butter.

“Why did he do this?” Shion asked, flapping the book he held.

Nezumi took his thumb from his mouth. “Why did who do what? Don’t just talk to hear yourself, use actual words with actual meaning.”

Shion’s shoulders slumped. On his face was a look of betrayal, and Nezumi tried to think of the events in _To Kill a Mockingbird,_ wondering what in the book was most likely to have upset him. Shion was a fast reader for six years old, but still decently slow. He couldn’t have been more than a third of the way through the book, which they’d gotten that morning on their weekly library trip.

“Why did Atticus kill the dog?” Shion asked, his voice dejected. He slumped down, knees hitting the couch cushions dramatically.

“The rabid dog?” Nezumi asked, after sucking his thumb for a moment to think back to the plot. Nezumi had started rereading the books he chose for Shion to read before he gave them to Shion, both making sure there wasn’t anything too mature in them and refreshing the plots in his mind so he could have proper answers when Shion asked his inevitable questions.

“Yeah. Atticus isn’t supposed to harm people. He’s supposed to rescue them.”

Nezumi leaned back against the living room wall, contemplating the dejected kid in front of him. “He shot the dog to protect the community. It was rabid. It would have spread disease and death. It’s a metaphor, Shion, think. It’s just like how Atticus is defending Tom to protect the community from its own racism.”

“Taking a life is not the same as defending Tom.”

“The dog was rabid. It was gone. There was nothing he could have done.”

“There’s a cure for rabies,” Shion countered.

“There wasn’t in the 1930s.”

“The first rabies vaccination was developed in 1885!” Shion snapped back, throwing _To Kill a Mockingbird_ on the carpet.

“Hey, don’t throw that. It’s not your property, so treat it with respect,” Nezumi said, stepping forward to pick up the book from where it had landed, half open with some of the pages curled. He closed it and held it still as he sat on the couch in front of Shion. On his knees on the cushions, Shion was at eye level with Nezumi when he sat.

“Atticus is supposed to be the good guy. The one who thinks about his decisions before he makes them. He should have thought of the rabies vaccines,” Shion said, petulant almost. He was the most adult-like kid Nezumi thought existed in the world, but his childishness showed itself often, reminded Nezumi in a way that often took him by surprise that Shion was, for all his knowledge and maturity, still just a kid. And a stubborn one too.

“There was no time to think. Sometimes, you find yourself in a tough situation where there’s no time to think, there’s only time to act. And you’ll have to make a hard decision, even if it goes against what you’d rather do. Sometimes it’s necessary. Atticus knew if he took the time to go and find this rabies vaccine that you claim was fully accessible in the 1930s—in a small town in Alabama, no less—by that time, the dog would have spread its disease. He had to act fast. He did what he thought was right at the time, and that’s not always going to be what’s right in every scenario. The world’s not always black and white. People aren’t just good or bad,” Nezumi said, not thinking about what he was saying until after he’d said it, when he could see the words being absorbed by Shion.

Nezumi himself wasn’t sure if he believed what he’d said. In fiction, maybe, there could be gray areas, but fiction was an idealized world. People changed in fiction. Tragedies could have happy endings and silver linings. There was none of that in the real world.

But Shion was six, and Nezumi wasn’t trying to totally fuck up the kid from such a young age.

Nezumi held the book out, and after a moment, Shion took it. “No more shouting. Reading is a silent activity, don’t make me tell you again.”

“But it’s better when we talk about the books together, don’t you think?” Shion asked, rubbing his thumb over the worn paperback cover. “That’s what makes reading fun.”

Nezumi read because it took him out of the world. It made him forget his life and who he was. It made him forget anyone else existed, that he existed. That was what made it, as Shion would say, _fun._

Nezumi didn’t say this. He sighed, stood up, ruffled the kid’s hair because Shion still looked a bit shocked by the dog’s death. Only Shion would care so much about a fictional mangy mutt.

“Try to get through a chapter without needing to talk about it. You can’t always rely on me to interpret the meaning of what’s happening for you, you need to learn to do it on your own.”

“Why? You’ll always be here, and you always have the answers, so why should I bother learning for myself?” Shion asked.

“Don’t you like knowledge? Aren’t you the big nerd here?” Nezumi asked, walking away from him to the kitchen to finish their sandwiches.

“I’ll master math and science, and you can master literature, and then together, we’ll be unstoppable!” Shion called, his little voice ringing through the wall between them.

Nezumi shook his head as he opened the cupboard for plates. The kid said stupid things at least once an hour, but Nezumi wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get used to it.

*

After a month of babysitting, it was April, which meant Shion was about to start school. Nezumi wouldn’t ordinarily have kept track of the time, but Shion had a going countdown that he thought necessary to share with Nezumi several times a day.

The kid was conflicted—he claimed he loved school and was excited, but he also didn’t want the summer with Nezumi to end. _It’s been the best month of my life_ , Shion gushed, and Nezumi had almost wanted to sock him in his little mouth for having lived so few months he still had the ability to choose a favorite.

Today was the last day of babysitting, and Nezumi was on the couch marking his script. He’d been cast as Ophelia, the same role he always played. He had every intricacy of her part memorized and perfected and there was no more work he thought could be done, so he spent much of his time marking other characters’ lines. The other actors Nezumi worked with changed as casts will do, with new people every few years. Nezumi learned their quirks and allowed himself to made adjustments to his own performance based on whom he’d be acting against. He’d started letting Shion read lines with him, mostly to breathe new life into the script and his own experience of it—never before had Nezumi acted against someone so painfully terrible at the art of theater. It was almost amusing, and it certainly made well-worn lines suddenly unfamiliar when spoken with Shion’s attempts at emotion.

“Hey, Nezumi,” Shion said, his voice small from the kitchen.

Nezumi didn’t bother looking up from his script book. “What?”

When there was no response, Nezumi turned his head to see if Shion had appeared from the kitchen, but the kid was still out of sight. Nezumi sighed, got up from the couch, and walked around the separating wall to see that Shion was sitting at the kitchen table ripping a piece of bread into pieces.

Nezumi leaned against the side of the wall and crossed his arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be making sandwiches? You’re wasting food right now.”

Shion mumbled something incoherent to the bread.

“What was that?”

Shion glanced up. “We’re friends now, right?”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “What gave you that idea?”

The kid was wide-eyed, which was his usual expression though perhaps it was a bit more somber now. “That’s not an answer.”

“Why are you asking such a stupid thing?”

Shion looked back down at the scattered bread. He started shifting the shreds on the table, and it took Nezumi a moment to realized he was putting them back into the shape of the original piece of bread, as if it was a puzzle. “When you’re no longer my babysitter, does that mean we’ll never hang out anymore?”

Nezumi squinted at him. “We’re not hanging out. I’m supervising you because you’re a child, so I have to make sure you don’t kill yourself or draw on the wall with crayons.”

“But we are hanging out because you know I’m not going to kill myself or draw on the wall with crayons,” Shion said, looking up from the bread puzzle again, his expression more stubborn now.

“I don’t know any such thing, you could be capable of anything.”

“But you know me,” Shion insisted, urgent in a way that was odd.

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his face. “What is the point of this conversation?”

“The point is I want to know I’ll see you again after today. I will, right? Because we’re friends. We are, right? Don’t lie, Nezumi, we are.”

Nezumi blinked at him. Shion’s eyes were wide and almost glassy, as if he might start crying, which was so alarming a thought Nezumi tried to pay more attention to what the kid was saying.

“No matter what you say, I know we are,” Shion said so quietly it was almost under his breath, but Nezumi still heard him.

“Then it doesn’t matter what I say,” Nezumi said slowly.

Shion looked at Nezumi for a long moment. His gaze hardened in a way that was familiar by now—Shion had a stubborn streak, and when he’d decided he was right, there was no convincing him otherwise. “That’s right. It doesn’t matter,” Shion agreed, voice hard as if he was trying not to sound like a six-year-old kid, and Nezumi couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, in that case, I won’t bother arguing. Clearly, your word is law, I’m sorry for doubting you, Your Majesty.” Nezumi reached out, ruffled Shion’s hair until Shion slapped his at his wrist with his small hands.

“I told you not to do that!” 

Nezumi went to stove to put the kettle on. “You better eat that bread, don’t be wasteful.” 

“We can feed the pigeons.”

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Because they need food too, and it’s probably hard for a bird to find food in the city,” Shion said, as if this made any sense at all, but it must have made some sense, as the next thing Nezumi knew, he was out in Tokyo’s streets, throwing bread at birds and thinking suddenly the city looked like a place he’d never even seen before.

It was jarring, to see something new after a century of seeing the same damn thing every day of his life. Nezumi was terrified he’d start getting used to it.

*

Nezumi didn’t know how it happened, exactly, but at some point he started baking in Karan’s bakery, and by the time Shion’s seventh birthday rolled around, it was Nezumi who found himself making the cake.

“If I fuck it up, he won’t let me hear the end of it,” Nezumi muttered, staring at the cake through the oven door at a crouch until the oven light suddenly turned off, and Nezumi looked around, alarmed.

“You can’t leave the oven light on for the full half hour. Go peel some apples, make yourself busy, you’re not going to burn it,” Karan assured him.

Nezumi stood up, smoothing the apron Karan had bought him—he wasn’t sure when that had happened either—and going to the fridge to get the apples.

“He’ll love it just because you made it,” Karan said, rubbing his arm as she passed by him to the sink.

“That’s a stupid reason to love something.”

“Do you think so? I can’t think of a better reason to love something than because someone important to you made it.”

Nezumi peeled the apple in his hands carefully, steadily, as Karan had shown him, twisting the peeler slowly around it without applying too much pressure so as not to waste the fruit beneath the peel. He’d mastered peeling apples so that the skin curled in a single ribbon just last week, but today, at Karan’s words, his hand slipped, and the peel broke a quarter of the way down the apple.

Nezumi barely noticed. He wasn’t paying attention to the apple. He was trying to remember the last time he’d been important to anyone, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t remember. It’d been so long ago, and there were only so many memories Nezumi could keep. He tried to remember the significant things, but time ruined those too. Enough time could take the meaning, the emotion, the importance out of everything.

It’d only be a matter of time before even Shion and Karan stopped mattering too. Before Nezumi was on his own again, not peeling apples, not baking cakes, not celebrating birthdays. Before things were back to normal.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Shion kept having birthdays because that is what people who were not Nezumi did. They aged with the years. They grew older and closer to death.

Karan had birthdays too, and somehow Nezumi ended up celebrating those with her as well even though he’d never thought of birthdays as anything to celebrate.

Soon enough, Karan no longer looked like she might be Nezumi’s age. And Shion was no longer a kid, but a teenager, a gangly and awkward and just-turned sixteen-year-old.

Nezumi, again, found himself in Karan’s bakery on Shion’s birthday making Shion a birthday cake. The timer had just gone off, indicating the cake was cool enough to ice, and he’d just stuck the icing scraper in the bowl of fresh icing he’d made himself when the kitchen door swung open.

“Is that mine?” Shion asked, practically running over to Nezumi and leaning into his side.

“Don’t bump into me while I’m working, you’ll ruin my masterpiece.”

“Does that mean you’ll do a design on my cake? Can I make requests? Do you know the periodic table?”

“Shouldn’t you be at school right now?”

“It’s half past four,” Shion said, reaching out to stick his finger in the icing bowl.

Nezumi caught his wrist when his finger was an inch from the icing, and Shion blinked at him, eyes just as wide as they’d been ten years ago.

“Your reflexes are amazing,” Shion said, sounding breathless, amazed, and incredibly stupid—just like ten years ago too.

Nothing had changed, and everything had. Shion was just a few inches shorter than Nezumi now. His baby fat had left his face, and if anything, he was too skinny for his own good. He was no longer going into third grade at school, but about to graduate. He’d skipped another grade—fifth—and could have skipped eighth and tenth too but chose not to because he was a lunatic that liked school and didn’t want it to be over too soon.

He’d been smart as a kid, but now he was a genius. But what hadn’t changed about him was the way he looked at Nezumi, with too much attention, too much intrigue, too much fascination. As if Nezumi was the abnormal one. As if staying one age for all his life was fascinating when Nezumi was the one who was fascinated, who had watched Shion grow up and still wasn’t used to it, the changes that seemed to happen so quickly Nezumi could hardly keep track.

“You’re hurting me,” Shion said, after a moment, and Nezumi realized he was squeezing Shion’s wrist too hard.

He let go immediately and turned back to Shion’s cake. Sometimes he wanted to hurt Shion. He wanted to hurt everyone who could age when Nezumi couldn’t. He wanted to punish them for not having to live the way he did—for not having to live forever.

Nezumi felt Shion looking at him but didn’t look back. He dipped the scraper in the icing and started to ice Shion’s cake, going from top to bottom the way Karan had taught him years ago.

“You can talk to me about it,” Shion finally said, once Nezumi had slathered a good few inches of cake.

“About what?” Nezumi asked the cake.

“What’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s bothering me.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“You’re not?” Nezumi stuck the icing scraper back into the bowl. Plopped a dollop of icing on the cake haphazardly. He wanted to stab the thing in the middle and be done with it but stopped himself.

Shion sighed beside him. “Okay, I’m going to help my mom at the front if you’re going to do your sulky silent treatment thing. Which you shouldn’t be allowed to do on my birthday, by the way.”

“I’m not giving you the silent treatment,” Nezumi argued, glancing at him.

“You might as well be, for all the nothing you tell me,” Shion snapped, then whirled around, dramatic as usual—another thing that hadn’t changed—and left the kitchen.

Nezumi watched the kitchen door swing back and forth a few times before settling, then turned again to Shion’s cake. He glared at it, then worked to smooth the icing he’d dolloped, wondering what color icing would be best for the periodic table.

*

Nezumi’s stomach was heavy with cake and his head heavier with wine. He didn’t realize his eyes were closed until Shion kicked him.

“Wake up.” 

“I’m not sleeping,” Nezumi muttered, opening his eyes to look at Shion, who was sideways in his chair at the table beside him.

Shion was sideways because Nezumi’s cheek rested on the crook of his elbow. He sat up, rubbed at his eyes.

“You can sleep over,” Shion said, while Nezumi looked across the table at the chair that had just a second ago been where Karan was sitting.

“Why would I sleep over when I live across the hall? Where’s your mother?”

“She went to bed.”

Nezumi blinked at him.

“You were asleep for a half hour,” Shion added, and Nezumi noticed the table was indeed cleaned of plates and wine glasses.

Nezumi sat up straighter. “Why didn’t you wake me to clean up?”

Shion shrugged. “Your whole body relaxes when you sleep. I’d never seen you look so peaceful.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Nezumi muttered, pushing his bangs off his forehead and yawning. “Whatever, I should go, it’s probably late.”

“It’s half past midnight. No longer my birthday,” Shion said. He was sitting in his chair with his knees pulled up to his chest, his chin rested on them. Nezumi couldn’t imagine how he managed that in a wooden kitchen chair.

Nezumi waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll have another one next year.”

“But you still didn’t give me anything,” Shion said, while Nezumi stretched his arms above his head and stood up.

Nezumi looked down at him. “What was I supposed to give you?”

“My present.”

Nezumi laughed. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Then give me something else,” Shion said, his expression turning serious. He let his feet fall from the chair, and then he was standing up. “The truth. I want the truth, Nezumi, I’m old enough to know now.”

Nezumi took a step back from him. “What truth?”

He could see the flinch of Shion’s jaw. Shion’s gaze was hard, and there was a crease between his eyebrows. Nezumi knew what truth he was talking about. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

“Come on, Nezumi, you have to tell—”

“Not tonight,” Nezumi cut in, stepping back again from Shion, looking at him properly. Sixteen years old. Shion’s hands were in fists as if he was the one with the right to be angry.

“But—” 

“It’s late. And your mother’s asleep, do you want to wake her?”

“I’ll come over your place, then, and you can tell me there,” Shion said, not letting Nezumi reply before he was walking past Nezumi and out his own front door, not even pausing to put on slippers.

Nezumi cursed under his breath and followed Shion to his own apartment, alarmed that Shion seemed to be opening it.

“Where’d you get my key?” he demanded, as the door swung open before Nezumi could grab his key from Shion’s hand.

“Took it while you were sleeping. I knew you’d say we couldn’t talk because you didn’t want to wake my mom. You’re so predictable with your excuses,” Shion said, walking into Nezumi’s apartment like he had every right to be there.

“Starting your sixteenth year with theft, is that really how you want to do it?” Nezumi demanded, slamming his door closed behind him and following Shion to where he’d walked to Nezumi’s worn couch.

Shion sat at the corner of the couch, pulling his legs up onto the cushion and crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

“I’ll pick you up and carry you back to your place if you keep this up.”

“Go ahead,” Shion said back.

“You think this insolent act is cute? Let me be the one to assure you it’s not. Get out of my apartment,” Nezumi said, standing a few feet away from the couch and working hard to keep from shouting, fully aware that it was near one in the morning and he didn’t need the hassle of a noise complaint.

Shion stared at him, and for a moment, his hard expression faltered, but then he hitched it back again, tightened his crossed arms. “I said I’m not leaving. I read about Eternal Eve, you know. You used to be a tourist attraction, and I had to read about it? I have a right to know, I have a right to be told the truth by you and not to have to read it.”

“A right? Listen, Your Majesty, you have no right to know anything about me,” Nezumi said shortly.

“Of course I do, I’m your best friend!” Shion shouted.

Nezumi laughed. “Is that what you think?”

Shion shook his head, looking, of all things, disappointed. “Can’t you stop the ‘I don’t give a shit,’ act for one conversation? Just once, that’s all I ask. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love it, it’s great, but just once I wouldn’t mind having a conversation with you where you’re actually genuine and honest about your feelings.”

“Since when were you sarcastic?” Nezumi asked.

“Guess I got it from you, it was bound to rub off at some point,” Shion snapped back, looking pleased with himself, and Nezumi almost wanted to laugh at him again, but he was too tired to keep this up.

He held up his hands in the sign of surrender. “Okay, okay, you win, Your Majesty, you always win. Everything you read about Eternal Eve is true. I’ve confirmed it, you heard it from me. Can we be done now? Can you get out so I can sleep? It’s one in the goddamn morning.”

Shion arms uncrossed. “It’s true?” he asked, his self-satisfied expression shifting to slack-jawed disbelief.

Nezumi blinked at him. “Yeah, that’s what I said. What’s with the shock? I thought you did your research.”

“You don’t age?” Shion asked, leaning forward.

Nezumi closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He contemplated his options. He would have to physically drag Shion out of his apartment to stop the line of questioning, which was doable but inconvenient, and Shion would no doubt put up a fight and possibly start shouting. Or he could just answer the kid’s questions, but knowing Shion, those questions would be endless, and Nezumi ideally wanted to go to sleep at some point in the night.

He dropped his hand from his nose, opened his eyes, and walked to the couch, sitting on the cushion in front of Shion’s crossed legs.

“You get three questions. That’s it, I can’t do this all at once with you. Then you get out of here and give me some peace. Deal?” Nezumi asked, looking hard at Shion, who blinked back at him.

“Five,” Shion finally said.

“No.”

“I won’t leave.”

“I’ll punch you in the face so that you’re knocked out and I’ll carry you back to your apartment,” Nezumi countered, and Shion seemed to mull the possibility over.

“Okay, three,” he agreed, nodding. “My first question stays the same. Do you age?”

Nezumi squinted at him, unsure whether to believe the guy would keep his end of the deal, but he supposed he had no other choice than to trust him. Nezumi sighed, then shook his head once.

“That’s a no,” Shion said.

“That’s a no,” Nezumi confirmed.

“You don’t age.”

“You asked that already, move on or we’ll be doing this all night.”

“But how can you not age?” Shion demanded.

“Is that your second question?”

Shion bit his lip. “Should it be? I don’t know. Wait, wait, I need to think, I didn’t know I’d only have three questions, I didn’t prepare,” Shion said in a rush, then stood up, began pacing and biting the nail of his thumb.

“Don’t bite your nails,” Nezumi told him, turning to watch him pace and settling into the couch.

Shion dropped his hand from his mouth and kept pacing. At about the time Nezumi’d had enough of watching Shion pace and was about to inform him if he didn’t spit out a question soon, the deal was null, Shion stopped and faced him.

“Are you some kind of mythical creature?”

Nezumi snorted. “That’s what you want to ask me?”

“Vampires don’t age,” Shion said, almost whispering.

“Vampires aren’t real,” Nezumi reminded him.

“How am I supposed to know that? If you’re real, can’t anything be real? Aren’t all the rules of the universe now proven to be arbitrary and meaningless?” Shion threw up his hands. He seemed to be having some kind of crisis. It occurred to Nezumi that for someone so obsessed with research-based facts, Nezumi’s own existence was proving rather inconvenient.

“I’m not a vampire,” Nezumi finally said, thinking he could at least put that worry to rest.

“Then what are you?” Shion demanded, sounding almost angry, and Nezumi almost flinched at his tone.

He leaned back into the couch. He hadn’t expected this question. He hadn’t asked himself this question for decades, for nearly a century, and he didn’t want to think about it now.

Shion’s expression shifted, softened. He walked slowly to the couch, then sat next to Nezumi, too close.

“You should stay back, I might suck your blood,” Nezumi told him.

“I’m sorry,” Shion said.

“For what?”

Shion just looked at him. He really did look older, but of course he did. Why shouldn’t he?

“It upsets you,” Shion finally said. “Talking about this.”

“I’m not upset,” Nezumi said shortly.

“We don’t have to talk about it. I’ll leave.” There was pity in his voice, and Nezumi bristled, leaned forward and looked hard at the asshole who had the nerve to feel sorry for him.

“You will not leave. You asked what I am? I don’t know what I am. You’ve got one more question, so ask it,” Nezumi said, hearing the hatred in his voice, unable to stop it from being there, even when Shion leaned away from him.

“But—”

“I don’t give a shit about talking about this, all right? You think I’m not used to it by now? You think I care? Hurry up and ask your fucking questions.”

Shion lifted his hand to his mouth, bit his thumbnail for just a second, then seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped his hand back to his lap. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Is there anyone else like you?”

Nezumi hated Shion more by the second. Of course he’d ask the worst questions. Of course he’d ask the ones Nezumi wanted most to avoid. “No,” Nezumi said curtly, even though he didn’t know, he didn’t have proof, maybe there were others except he refused to think that, he refused to entertain that hope, it was a foolish thought he’d had years ago, but he knew better now. After a century of being alone, he knew better than to want anything else.

Shion nodded. Stood up from the couch.

“That’s it? Your curiosity is all satisfied?” Nezumi demanded.

“That was three questions.”

“Ask some more then.”

“Nezumi—”

Nezumi stood up. He knew he was being mean. He knew Shion felt bad, and he wanted Shion to feel worse. Nezumi would prove he wasn’t someone to pity. What did he care about Shion’s fascination? What did he care if Shion wanted him to talk about the things he’d refused to even think about for longer than he could remember?

“Ask me something else,” Nezumi said, standing an inch from Shion. The kid used to be shorter, used to come up to Nezumi’s knees. Nezumi hated how tall he was now. Hated everything that showed what time could do to him.

“How long have you been alive?” Shion asked, after a minute of just staring, clearly trying to decide whether his curiosity mattered more to him than Nezumi’s feelings. Nezumi was glad the curiosity won out. He didn’t need his sniveling neighbor worrying about his feelings.

“A hundred eighteen years.” The answer was simple. Nezumi didn’t consciously keep count, but he knew how long he’d been on this damn earth. He couldn’t lose track of it. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t lose track.

Shion’s shock showed in the part of his lips. Nezumi didn’t have any use for shock.

“Ask me another.”

“Um, are you—Does that mean you’re immortal?”

Nezumi, too, had wondered this. Had spent years and years wondering this. “Don’t know. I haven’t tried to kill myself yet.”

“Yet?” Shion asked. More of that shock, now showing itself in the high pitch of his voice.

“Next question.”

“Nezumi, wait, I don’t—I don’t need to know everything now. It’s late, right? Why don’t we just—”

“You don’t need to know everything now? You? You’re the last person in the world to say that and mean it. You want to know everything about everything. You want to know everything about me. You’re fascinated and it’s been keeping you up at night, what exactly is going on with that Eternal Eve, how he’s lived so long, how he’s stopped himself from aging. You want to know more. I know you do, don’t lie to me.”

With each word Shion took a step back from him, but Nezumi walked forward, followed him, wasn’t about to let this brat get away from him.

“This is what you want, so ask your goddamn questions,” Nezumi hissed, when Shion was against the wall and couldn’t get away from him.

“I don’t have anymore,” Shion whispered. He wasn’t shocked anymore. He was scared, but that was better than pity, so Nezumi would take it.

“You don’t want to ask why it happened?” Nezumi prompted.

Shion shook his head. His eyes didn’t leave Nezumi’s.

“You don’t want to ask how I got so lucky to be immortal, to be blessed with eternal youth, how it feels to have such a privilege? You don’t want to ask if I thank my lucky stars every night for such a gift? You don’t want to ask how fortunate it feels to have this gift of watching my entire family die, this gift of outliving everyone I’ve ever known, this gift of waking up every day for one hundred and eighteen years and having to keep going, having no other option than this, life, glorious life, never-ending life? You don’t want to ask if I’ve ever thought about trying to kill myself to end this misery, how many nights I’ve spent thinking about how I’d do it—how a gun would be most satisfying, but a noose makes a nice visual, but throwing myself off a bridge would ensure there’s no clean-up for the landlady, but I haven’t been able to rule out pills either—”

“Stop!” Shion shouted. His eyes were wet. He was going to cry when he had no reason to. He wasn’t the one stuck in time. He was aging, and Nezumi was watching him, had seen him grow from a little kid.

It was the very reason Nezumi preferred his solitary life. Why he never went for drinks with his coworkers after rehearsals and shows. Why he capped his sexual encounters at one-night stands and never slept with the same person twice. Why he’d never spoken to his neighbors before Karan and Shion. He couldn’t stand it, watching people age, and even if he had to be surrounded by it just from the sheer fact of living in a city, he wasn’t trying to give himself a front row seat to it.

He didn’t know how Karan and Shion had changed this about him. He didn’t know, but he hated them for it.

“Ask me something else, Shion,” Nezumi said quietly, watching Shion reach up, wipe at his eyes, watching him breathe deep, watching him shake his head.

“No,” he breathed.

“You wanted the truth. You wanted all of it. You’re old enough to know it all, that’s what you said, right? Because sixteen is old, isn’t it?”

“You’re being an asshole,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi took a step back. Looked at the pathetic teenager flat against his living room wall. Wanted to laugh at him, at his fear, at his realization that Nezumi was not a nice guy—how he’d convinced himself otherwise for so many years was a feat only an idiot could have accomplished.

Nezumi didn’t laugh. Instead, he took another step back, nodded his chin toward his front door. “Get out of my apartment,” he said, and Shion seemed to hesitate, but luckily common sense won out, and he pushed himself off the wall, walked quickly around Nezumi, and left.

Nezumi didn’t turn to watch him. He only knew Shion was gone when he heard the opening and closing of his door, and then, from across the hall, the more muted sound of the opening and closing of his neighbor’s door.

Nezumi didn’t move from his living room. He was exhausted, and it wasn’t just from this night. It was from a hundred eighteen years. The time was killing him, except that it wasn’t, and Nezumi was sick of limbo, sick of being stuck, sick of living.

*

Shion was unchanged the next day, cheerful when he came into the bakery after school and helped Nezumi make cherry pie.

After a few hours of baking together, during which Shion chattered on about what he learned in school like any other day, Nezumi had to head to rehearsal. He was hanging up his apron when Shion stopped talking about velocity or whatever he’d been saying.

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi turned from the apron hooks and reached up to retie his ponytail.

Shion was using the sides of his palms to pool the sprinkled flour on the counter into a small pile in the middle, but he stopped when he looked at Nezumi. “Thanks for last night. For telling me about you. I know it was hard.”

It shouldn’t have surprised Nezumi that Shion would thank him for being an asshole the night before. He leaned against the sink. “You should know by now your wish is my command.”

Shion just looked at him, then nodded once and looked back at his little pile of flour. “Have a good rehearsal, Nezumi.”

There was something else he wanted to say, and that was clear to Nezumi, but if the kid wouldn’t spit it out, Nezumi wasn’t going to force it out of him.

He reached up to ruffle Shion’s hair as he passed him on the way out the kitchen, remembering when he had to reach down to do so. “See you later, Your Majesty.”

On the way out the bakery, he waved to Karan, and then he was outside, pulling his shoulders in against the cold and stuffing his hands in his pockets and thinking he should move, leave his apartment, find a new one somewhere far where he knew no one. It’d been a mistake to let himself know Karan and Shion, and he had to leave this place before the mistake worsened, before they kept aging and didn’t stop.

Even as he thought this, Nezumi knew he wouldn’t move. But it was a nice thought, to think he could. To think he had the power to stop his life from getting worse if he really wanted to.

*

Nezumi was inspecting bags of apples in the produce section, trying to find one with the least amount of bruised fruit, when his phone vibrated.

He still wasn’t used to having a cell phone. Shion bought it for him when he started at university even though it wasn’t like the kid was far away—he was at the University of Tokyo and commuting, still living in the same apartment across the hall. Granted, Nezumi had seen a lot less of him in the past months. He was constantly doing chemistry experiments in his lab, which Nezumi had seen once when Shion dragged Nezumi to his university to give him a tour, show him his classrooms and favorite spots. The tour ended with Shion suggesting, not for the first time, that Nezumi apply to university, which only got funnier each time Shion suggested it.

Nezumi fished his phone from his pocket. He hated it because the time was right on the screen, so he generally didn’t look at it unless it vibrated, alerting him to a text from Shion—most often useless updates on his classes or photos of rats he was dissecting, which disturbed Nezumi greatly—or occasionally Karan, asking if he’d be stopping into the bakery on the rare occasions when Nezumi wasn’t already there.

It was a call from Karan, which Nezumi assumed was because she’d forgotten something on the grocery list she’d sent him with—Nezumi was at the store getting stock for the bakery—but when he picked up, her voice was panicked.

“Shion’s in the hospital,” she said, before Nezumi could even greet her.

“What happened?” Nezumi asked, dropping the bag of apples he’d been inspecting back on the pallet with the others.

“I don’t know—they just called me, all they said was they were trying to get his condition stable—I don’t know what happened—I’m heading there now—”

“I’ll meet you there,” Nezumi said quickly, already having walked out the produce section and nearly walking into the automatic sliding doors of the exit, which didn’t open fast enough to keep up with his stride. He waited impatiently, slipping through them sideways when they finally started to open.

“Nezumi, what if—”

Nezumi hung up the phone before Karan could finish the same fear tightening his own chest.

Shion was a month away from seventeen. Everyone who died was too young compared to Nezumi, but this, this was _too young._ It was too soon. Nezumi refused to consider it and hated the tightening of his chest, hated that he could barely breathe, hated his inability to stop his own panic.

*

Karan didn’t leave Shion’s hospital room for a full twelve hours after Shion woke, and when she finally did it was only because Shion insisted if she didn’t get something to eat from the downstairs cafeteria, he would stop eating too.

“You should go with her, make sure she actually eats something,” Shion said, looking at Nezumi, who sat in the chair beside the one Karan had just vacated. The chairs had been against the wall of the room, but both Karan and Nezumi had dragged them close enough to Shion’s bedside so that while Nezumi was sitting, his knees dug into Shion’s cot mattress.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what actually happened,” Nezumi said, tucking his bangs behind his ears when they fell forward. His hair was greasy, but of course it was. He’d been in this hospital for over twenty-four hours, though he’d left Shion’s bedside more frequently than Karan in order to bring them both tea from the cafeteria and alternatively to pace the halls of the hospital, trying at first to deny his fear and when that didn’t work to dispel his fear with movement, though he’d been unable to do that until Shion finally opened his eyes.

“I told you what happened,” Shion said, averting his eyes to look at the ceiling, which was a bit of a relief.

His eyes were no longer brown, but blood red. They were both fascinating and eerie, and Nezumi was only able to stop looking at them in order to look at Shion’s hair—now an almost luminescent white—or the raised pink scar on his cheek that wrapped around his neck and dipped down the collar of his hospital gown.

These new changes were all courtesy of what Shion claimed was a chemistry accident. Apparently, he’d thought he’d brewed a concoction akin to alcohol that wouldn’t give hangovers, though after consuming it, he’d realized he’d made a grave mistake in his calculations.

“Bullshit,” Nezumi said, arching his back to stretch before leaning forward again, resting his elbows on Shion’s hospital bed and waiting until Shion glanced away from the ceiling to cast those alarming red eyes on him again.

“Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Shion said quietly.

“Don’t lie to me, Your Majesty. You don’t make mistakes like this. You’re too smart for that.”

“So you think I did this to myself on purpose?” Shion asked.

“The docs said whatever you consumed was so powerful it almost altered your DNA make up. You think I’m going to believe that was an experiment with alcohol?”

“I added the wrong compound by accident,” Shion said.

Nezumi shook his head. “You know what I think? I think you’re a genius, and you wouldn’t be able to fuck up so badly, which means whatever happened to you was either supposed to happen, or real close to what was supposed to happen. And while I like this new look you’re sporting, it’s clear you’re a bit less fond of it, which means this isn’t what was supposed to happen. So tell me what was supposed to happen. And hurry up if you want to tell me before your mother gets back.”

Shion stared at him. His red eyes should have been alien, should have been strange, and of course they were, but at the same time they seemed familiar. They were still Shion’s eyes. It was still a look Nezumi knew well that Shion was giving him—a hesitant look, worried and uncertain.

“You’ll be mad,” Shion finally said.

“I’m madder that you’re lying to me. You’re the one who says we’re best friends, and best friends don’t lie, right?”

“So we are best friends?”

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you? So I guess not, looks like I’ve been right all along,” Nezumi said simply, watching Shion’s inner conflict slip over his expression in the scrunch of his eyebrows and the bite of his lip.

“You won’t tell my mom?” he finally asked.

“Cross my heart,” Nezumi replied.

Shion sighed so heavily Nezumi was tempted to chastise him for being dramatic, but he kept silent to let Shion talk. “I was trying to alter my DNA.”

Nezumi had not even known that was possible. Shion’s doctors, too, were baffled by it, had done the tests five times, they claimed, to confirm the results. “A crazy fluke of chemicals,” they’d said. “It’s a miracle he’s alive! It’s even more of a miracle he was able to accidentally combine chemicals to achieve what no one in the chemistry field has ever come close to accomplishing with deliberate research!”

Nezumi had never believed in miracles, and he didn’t believe them now.

“Why?” Nezumi asked, instead of asking how the hell Shion had even managed this. Maybe he was a genius, but even this seemed insane. Whatever explanation Shion gave, Nezumi doubted he’d understand a word of it anyway. 

Shion bit his lip again, and it split, Nezumi saw the blood slick along his bottom lip until Shion licked it. It was the same color as his new eyes.

“Shion,” Nezumi warned.

“I’ve been trying—I’ve been trying to… Ever since you confirmed that the Eternal Eve rumors were right, I’ve been coming up with—” Shion cut himself off, shook his head once. “Don’t be mad,” he said quietly.

Nezumi was still absorbing the sudden change in topic. Eternal Eve? What the hell did Nezumi’s shit have to do with any of this?

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say, Shion,” he finally said, when Shion kept staring at him.

“I thought—I thought maybe I could—and it’s not like I just threw something together, I’ve been researching this for years, before I started university, before you confirmed everything. I know chemicals, and I understand the body, and I thought there was a chance—maybe there is a chance still, just because it didn’t work this time doesn’t mean—”

“Stop rambling nonsense. What is it? Spit it out, Shion. Why were you trying to change your DNA? What were you trying to do to yourself?”

Shion shook his head again. His new hair was even whiter than his pillowcase. “You’re going to be mad.”

“I already am mad.”

“I researched, and it wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.”

“Don’t make me hit you.”

Shion closed his eyes tight like a little kid trying to hide from monsters, and when he blurted out his words, they came in a rush, and it took Nezumi a moment to untangle them from each other—“I think I might be able to make myself like you so I’ve been trying to do that and even though it didn’t work this time that doesn’t mean it’s impossible and I’m not giving up yet.”

Half a minute passed before Shion opened his eyes. They were still red, and Nezumi didn’t know why he’d expected them to suddenly change back.

“Are you mad?” he asked. 

“I’m still trying to figure out what you said. You’re like an overenthusiastic child, all your words just blend together,” Nezumi replied slowly, but he thought he figured it out. He wanted to be wrong. He had to be wrong.

Shion’s red eyes slipped around Nezumi’s face. “You’re mad,” he finally said.

“Trying to be like me,” Nezumi repeated, to test the words, to see if by saying them, he could turn them into something else.

“People age because DNA is always replicating, but as time goes on, DNA makes more mistakes when it replicates, and there’s malfunctions, and usually DNA has machinery to repair these malfunctions, but then that machinery becomes malfunctioned too, so then there’s nothing to repair—”

“Shion—”

“But this is my field, this is what I study, and really most cures for general diseases are based on stopping these malfunctions, so if I could just figure out a way to target all of the malfunctions at once in a manner that would last forever—”

“Okay, shut up—”

“Or even if it wasn’t forever, even if I can’t figure out immortality, I’m sure I could manage even a century, or something close to that—”

“I’m mad, you’re right, I’m mad, so shut up before I get madder,” Nezumi snapped, and Shion finally stopped talking.

Nezumi stared at him. Shion’s red eyes were pleading even though he was silent, so Nezumi looked instead at his hair. At the strange scar on his cheek that dipped down. The doctors said it wound around his entire body. Shion said it didn’t hurt when Karan asked him, but Nezumi didn’t know if Shion was lying or not.

He’d thought he knew Shion, he’d thought he could see through the kid, he’d thought everything Shion was thinking was obvious, that everything he felt was worn on his sleeve, but now Nezumi realized Shion had secrets. More secrets than Nezumi. Secrets worse than Nezumi’s.

“Nezumi,” Shion whispered, and Nezumi stood up abruptly, his chair legs dragging against the hospital floor and making a terrible sound.

“This is a joke, right?” Nezumi asked, stepping back, his thighs pushing the chair back again with his step so there was more of that dragging sound.

“It’s my body, and it’s my lifespan. This isn’t your decision, it’s mine—”

“Christ, Shion, you’ve got to be joking. Tell me this is a big fucking joke. Tell me you bleached your hair and then got embarrassed about it, so you made this elaborate scheme to cover a stupid fashion mistake.” Nezumi meant to shout but his voice was too quiet even to his own ears.

“This was a mistake, but I won’t make mistakes again! I promise, I won’t, I’ll figure it out, I’m so close, I know it—”

“You think I’m pissed because you fucked up and almost killed yourself? You think I’m mad about that?” Nezumi demanded, and now he heard his voice rising, and he couldn’t stop it from getting louder. “You want to know the truth? I’d rather you killed yourself with your next batch of immortality chemicals than the alternative. What if you succeed, you ever think of that? What if you get it right—and you’re a goddamn genius so even though this should all be science fiction, I bet you’ll do it, I bet you will, and then what? Then what?” Nezumi shouted.

Shion sat up against his headboard, wincing as he did so. “You shouldn’t shout, if my mom comes back and hears—”

“You don’t think! That’s your problem. If you even thought about what you’re trying to do to yourself for a second, for even just one goddamn second—”

“They might make you leave the hospital, they might escort you out if you keep shouting, you have to calm down—”

“Do you know how much I wish I could die? Can you even fathom it? But no, you decide my lifestyle is what you want, this miserable hell is what you want—Fuck, Shion! You’re so goddamn smart you can alter your own DNA, and somehow you can’t see how truly horrifying it is to be like me. There is nothing worse than this. There is nothing worse, and if you do this to yourself, you will spend every moment of your never-ending life regretting it. This is over, all right? Your little experiment is done now. Only children want immortality, only little kids who don’t know any better. You’re not a little kid, so stop acting like one, stop right now, are you listening?”

“I’m not doing this because I want to be immortal,” Shion argued, voice nearly as loud as Nezumi’s now, apparently having forgotten his previous concerns about his mother.

“Then why—”

“I’m doing this so you won’t be alone anymore!” Shion shouted. “I’d try to reverse your DNA, but you’d never give me samples because that’ll mean you have to let yourself hope that you can be changed, and I know you’ll never let yourself do that, so I have to change mine!”

Nezumi was aware his mouth was gaping open, but there was nothing he could do about that. “What the hell do you care if I’m alone? Why on earth would that matter to you?”

Shion said nothing. He looked at Nezumi for a moment, then ducked his head to stare down at his hands, which were picking a loose thread on his hospital blanket.

Nezumi watched him. Tried to make sense of him, but nothing made sense. No reason was good enough for Shion to want to do this to himself, to curse himself with a life like Nezumi’s. There was no reason that could justify that, make sense of that, no reason but—

“Tell me you’re not that stupid,” Nezumi said, quietly, stepping closer to the bed and trying to see Shion’s face, but Shion turned his head away from him to face the opposite wall where there was a window with cracked blinds.

“Nezumi, please don’t.”

“You’re a kid. You’ll always be a kid to me, it doesn’t matter how much time passes.”

Shion’s hands were knotting in the blanket now, tightening around the fabric. Nezumi looked at them since he couldn’t look at Shion’s expression. Watched the knuckles whiten.

“Listen, we’re friends, right? Best friends, see, I’ll admit it. That has to be enough. That’s all, okay?”

“I know that’s all,” Shion whispered, and his voice was thick, and Nezumi stepped back from the bed again, then stepped back once more.

It was a phase. Shion was a teenager, full of hormones, it was probably inevitable something like this would have happened, and Nezumi couldn’t blame the kid for it. He’d just give Shion some space, give him time to get over this because time could change everything. In time, Shion would come to his senses. See how ridiculous his feelings were. Fall for someone else, someone with a lifetime like his own.

Nezumi trusted that time would change things—that was what time did, it changed everything but Nezumi—but he didn’t know how much time it would take, and he didn’t know if in that time, Shion would perfect his magic potion, would drink it and ruin himself to a life like Nezumi’s before he understood that it wasn’t Nezumi he wanted, that it couldn’t be a life like this he wanted.

“Shion—”

“Can you not make fun of me? Just for this one thing?” Shion asked the opposite wall.

Nezumi took a breath, let it out slowly before responding. “I wasn’t going to. I won’t. But you need to promise me you won’t keep trying to change your DNA. Promise me.”

Shion said nothing.

“Look at me,” Nezumi said, raising his voice, and he didn’t think Shion would listen, but then he did.

His eyes were wet. He was so damn young.

“If you don’t stop this, I’ll move. I’ll move out of my apartment and somewhere far away, and I won’t tell you where, and I won’t tell Karan, and I won’t come back. You keep doing this, and I’ll disappear, and even if you manage to make yourself like me, you’ll never be able to find me again.”

Shion rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, jostling his own IV and wincing, looking down at it, then looking at Nezumi again. He looked miserable, but he didn’t even know what misery was.

“Promise me, Shion,” Nezumi said, nodding once at him because they both knew he would. 

He could see Shion swallow, the movement of his throat. “Okay,” Shion whispered. “I promise I’ll stop trying to be like you.”

His words were barely anything but air, but Nezumi heard them, and he knew Shion was the kind of person who didn’t make a promise unless he’d keep it. Nezumi was satisfied, and he took another step back from the bed.

“I’ll go check on Karan,” he said, then turned and left the room before Shion could object, though he doubted Shion would have wanted to.

He’d let Shion compose himself. He felt bad for the kid, but more than that he was so incredibly pissed at him.

Everyone said a person couldn’t control their emotions, couldn’t stop the heart from wanting what it wanted, but that was bullshit. Nezumi spent his whole life controlling his feelings. He’d stopped his heart from wanting anything until it had turned into just an organ, just another body part, nothing with any capability for desire, with any capability for longing or hurt or pain.

If Nezumi could do it, could shake off his emotions after he’d lost his entire family, after he’d lost everything but his life, then Shion could harden himself up just a little, could stop his own silly wants. Whatever Shion felt, whatever Shion had the capacity to feel, it was nothing compared to what Nezumi had stifled.

*

Shion was only in the hospital for three days, which didn’t seem long enough for someone whose DNA had been permanently altered, and then he was discharged on a Friday. Karan suggested he take the day off classes and take a long weekend to fully recover, but of course that nearly gave Shion a conniption after he’d just missed four days of classes. He insisted he actually had to stay on campus late to try to make up some of the work he’d missed, so on Friday night it was only Nezumi and Karan who were closing up the bakery.

Karan was counting out the register while Nezumi swept. He heard the clinking sound of the register drawer closing right before Karan spoke to him.

“He turns seventeen in just over three weeks.”

“That kid has too many birthdays,” Nezumi replied, stooping to get beneath a table.

“I know they’re hard on you.”

Nezumi stood up straight. Glanced at Karan, who was looking at him from behind the counter. “Are you uninviting me to his birthday party?”

Karan smiled. “He’d have a fit if you weren’t the one to make his cake, and an even bigger fit if you weren’t there when he blew his candles out. I just want to say, Nezumi, that I know it’s hard for you. And I appreciate that you haven’t disappeared from our lives.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. When he left Shion’s hospital room after making the kid promise not to keep up his DNA experiments, Karan had been walking up to Shion’s room with an armful of snacks from the cafeteria, seemingly oblivious. For the first time, it occurred to Nezumi that she’d been there the whole time, listening, and had the foresight to take a few steps down the hallway before Nezumi came out the room.

“Why would I disappear?” Nezumi asked, deciding to play dumb, knowing Karan would take the hint.

Karan just tilted her head at him. Sometimes, even more than her son, Nezumi hated looking at her. When they’d met, they could have been the same age. Now, they couldn’t. One day, she’d look old enough to be his mother. And then old enough to be his grandmother. And then old enough to die.

Nezumi felt his hands tightening around the broom handle and worked to relax.

“This is the first time it’s happened, isn’t it? The first time you’ve let yourself connect with people after…” Karan trailed off.

“My family,” Nezumi finished for her.

Karan’s expression was soft, gentle. If it had been Shion asking these questions, Shion saying these things, Shion insisting Nezumi talk about his past, Nezumi would have been pissed off. But something about Karan put Nezumi at ease, made it easier to speak about what he could barely let himself think about.

He leaned the broom against the table beside him, took a chair off the top of the table where he’d flipped it upside down so it wouldn’t be in the way while he swept, and set it on the floor again. He did the same to another chair and sat on that one, and then Karan was walking around the counter, sitting on the chair beside his.

“They all died at once. A fire. I was eight,” Nezumi said, not looking at Karan but out the glass storefront. He could hear her breathing beside him, and that was enough to let him speak.

She said nothing, just breathed, and Nezumi breathed with her, gave himself time to find the words he’d buried deep for so long, words he’d never given anyone.

“We lived just outside Tokyo, a little village. The fire was probably in one of Shion’s history books when he was in grade school, I’m sure he read about it, but he wouldn’t have known it was me. It was a hundred and ten years ago. No one knows the cause, but historians speculate it was the dry air that summer, nothing malicious. No one to be angry at.”

The world outside the bakery was bright despite the late hour. Tokyo was always lit up, and that was why Nezumi had come here. As a kid, he’d been afraid of the dark, but now, Nezumi missed his little village where it’d been dark enough that he could see the stars when he looked at the night sky. In Tokyo, there were no stars. In all the years since he’d last seen them, he’d forgotten what they looked like.

“My parents told my sister and I to run, so we did, but at some point she couldn’t keep up. She was only six. Her hand must have slipped from mine, and I didn’t even notice. By the time I noticed, I was completely alone, and the fire was far away. I was the only one who survived. And since then, I’ve kept surviving. I don’t know why. It feels like a curse. I outlived everyone, and now I can’t stop. I’ll outlive everyone over and over, and it’ll never stop.”

Nezumi looked away from the bright Tokyo night. Karan sat with one leg pulled up to her chest and her chin rested on her knee. She looked just like her son, but not anymore. Now he had red eyes and white hair. Now, if anyone looked at Shion and Nezumi beside each other, they’d never guess it was Nezumi who was the freak.

“I understand why you’ve isolated yourself your whole life since then. So you won’t have to outlive anyone again. But what I don’t understand is what changed. Why Shion and I?” Karan asked, and Nezumi was so relieved she didn’t say _I’m sorry for your loss._ Something in her must have understood that words like that meant nothing, were a waste of sound.

Nezumi leaned back in his chair. Looked around Karan’s bakery. Even after close, the smell of flour and fruit and cinnamon and chocolate was thick and mouth-watering. “I didn’t plan to ever speak to you again after I helped you move. But then you showed up with that cherry pie, and I was hooked,” Nezumi finally said.

Karan’s smile was soft. She wouldn’t push him the way Shion would, she wouldn’t demand a real answer.

That was as real an answer as Nezumi had, anyway, and Nezumi suspected Karan knew that. There was no reason Karan and Shion had been an exception. It’d been a mistake, and now Nezumi couldn’t undo it. He’d become part of other people’s lives, and he’d let them into his. He knew he’d regret it, but now, in this moment, he couldn’t help but be relieved that, at least for this fraction of time, he didn’t have to exist on his own.

*

It was that same night, as Nezumi and Karan walked to their building together and Nezumi searched the sky for stars he wouldn’t find, that he told her.

“Your crazy son has a crush on me.”

“I know.”

Nezumi looked away from the sky to search Karan’s face instead. “You do?” He didn’t know why he was surprised. Sometimes he felt that Karan knew everything.

“He has for a while,” Karan said. She wasn’t looking at him but straight ahead, as if looking into the future. Nezumi wanted to ask her what she saw, but then he figured he’d rather not know. He could barely stand the present. The future wasn’t of any interest.

“Shouldn’t you talk to him? Tell him how stupid he’s being? First of all, I’m much too old.”

Karan laughed. “That’s certainly true. But I’ve learned it’s silly to try to talk Shion out of anything.”

Nezumi tucked his hands in his pockets, looked back at the starless sky. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t encourage him.”

“I’m not worried,” Karan said.

“He’s a kid anyway, he’ll always be a kid to me.”

“It’s strange. That’s what I thought too. I thought he’d always look to me like he did as a baby when I could hold him in my arms, when I could sing to him and rock him to sleep. But sometimes when I look at him now, it catches me off guard, and all I see is an adult. It’s like he’s a stranger in my own home.” Karan paused. “No, that’s not what it’s like. It’s like I’ve gone back in time. It’s like suddenly, his father is standing there. He looks just like him.”

Nezumi glanced at her. He’d only seen Shion’s father once, in a photo album years before. Karan rarely spoke about him. All Nezumi knew was he’d been one of her professors, and she’d been in love with him, but after she told him she was pregnant, he disappeared, even left the culinary school so she couldn’t contact him.

It made no sense to Nezumi, that Karan could fall in love with an asshole like that. But maybe that ran in her family—a propensity for falling for people that were no good.

“He doesn’t look like his father anymore,” Nezumi pointed out, and Karan was silent before she laughed.

“Oh, you’re right. Not anymore. Is it weird that I like the new look? He looks cool, right?”

Nezumi laughed too. “He does look cool.” When Nezumi pictured Shion, white-haired and red-eyed and scarred Shion, he realized he didn’t think Shion looked like a kid anymore. It was hard to look at Shion now and see kid Shion. Kid Shion had brown hair and brown eyes. It was as if his burgeoning adulthood had marked him.

They were at their building now, and Nezumi held the door for Karan, then followed her up the stairs. On their floor in front of their apartments, Nezumi had turned to unlock his door when Karan put her hand on his wrist.

Nezumi looked up from his keys.

“I trust you, Nezumi. He’s a kid now, but he won’t be in a few years. And I trust you.”

Nezumi curled his fingers around his keys. They were cool against his palm. “You can. You’re right to. I wouldn’t, Karan, I wouldn’t—I can’t even imagine it. It’d be absurd, ridiculous. I have no interest in him. He’s really not my type, you know,” Nezumi added, trying to get a smile out of Karan, but she just looked at him.

After a moment, her hand slid off his wrist. “Good night, Nezumi.”

Nezumi wanted to reassure her, to insist again, to ask Karan how she could be worried, how she could ever think that he’d be able to feel for Shion— _Shion—_ anything like desire.

But Nezumi let the words die on his lips and said simply, “Good night, Karan.”

*


	3. Chapter 3

Shion kept his promise, or, at least, Nezumi could only assume he did, as he didn’t land himself in the hospital again, and he clearly hadn’t been able to stop himself from aging, because he kept doing it.

He got his first degree and stayed in school to collect a few more in less time than it would have taken a normal person until Nezumi found himself baking the kid another cake, this one in congratulations for Shion having gotten a PhD at twenty-one years old.

Nezumi was mixing the batter in the kitchen when he heard Karan’s excited voice from the front of the bakery.

“I didn’t know we’d see you before tonight!”

He stopped mixing to listen for Shion’s voice, and sure enough, it came. “Hi, Mom, I finished up early in the lab. Is Nezumi in the back?”

“He’s making you a cake.”

Nezumi dipped his finger in the batter to taste it. He was sucking on his finger when Shion came through the sliding door, grinning his usual goofy grin. The more Nezumi looked at him, the more it seemed that this grin was the one thing about him that hadn’t changed since childhood.

“Is that for me?” Shion asked, dumping his backpack in the corner and coming over to Nezumi.

“The entire world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

“Oh, so it’s just you who revolves around me? Mom said you were making me a cake,” Shion said, leaning against Nezumi as he dipped his own finger in the batter. “Mmm,” he said around his finger.

“Do you mind?”

Shion took his finger from his mouth. “What?”

“Personal space, I know you must have heard of it,” Nezumi muttered. Shion’s body was warm, radiating heat from outside. Nezumi knew it was a warm day even though he’d been in the kitchen for most of it.

Shion didn’t move away. Instead he put his finger back in his mouth and looked at Nezumi for long enough that Nezumi stopped mixing and stared back at him.

“You know it’s rude to stare, right?”

Shion took his finger from his mouth again and wiped it on the thigh of his jeans. “Will you give me a gift for graduating?”

“I’m making this cake, aren’t I?”

“A real gift. One that I request.”

Nezumi sighed and went back to mixing. “And what is it that you want, Your Majesty?”

“What do you think I want?”

“To play riddles, apparently, which I will not be participating in. Either tell me or don’t.” The oven beeped to signal it had finished reheating, so Nezumi grabbed the cake pan that he’d already coated with butter and placed it beside the mixing bowl.

Shion was silent while Nezumi overturned the batter into the cake pan, scraping the sides of the bowl to get out most of the batter but leaving some and handing the bowl to Shion.

“Lick the bowl, that’s your present.”

Shion accepted it, dipping his finger in to scrape at the sides while Nezumi put the cake pan into the oven, set the timer, then started gathering ingredients for icing.

“Design request? Don’t make it hard, three colors tops,” Nezumi said, holding the box of food dyes.

Shion hugged the batter bowl to his chest and took his finger from his mouth again. He licked his lips, took a deep breath, then exhaled with a slump of his shoulders, dramatic as if he was making some great life decision.

“Fine, four colors,” Nezumi conceded, unsure why Shion’s red eyes were searching his face as if looking for an answer there.

“I want something from you,” he finally said.

“What does that mean? What do you want?” Nezumi asked, baffled.

Shion just looked at him, then shook his head, turned away from Nezumi and took his bowl to the sink. “I don’t need a fancy design, you can just write _Congratulations_ on it, and that’s fine.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Nezumi asked, watching Shion’s shoulder blades move beneath the thin fabric of his button down as he washed the bowl. It was a white shirt, but still not close to the bright white of his hair, a color Nezumi had gotten used to much faster than he’d expected.

He could see when Shion shrugged. “Nothing.”

Nezumi watched his back for another moment, then want back to the ingredients for icing, figuring if Shion was going to try to keep a secret from him, it would doubtfully be for long.

*

Nezumi had just kicked a man out of his apartment after fucking him twice and was searching his fridge. He’d been certain he still had a slice left of Shion’s PhD cake. He could even picture it in his head—it was the slice with the _ty_ of _Majesty_ from his message, _Congratulations, Your Majesty_.

His fridge was not well-populated, with just a carton of eggs, a Tupperware of fish curry, a nearly empty half gallon of milk, a bottle of soy sauce he was pretty sure had expired, and two bottles of sake that were both half full for some reason. It was therefore easy to see there was no lingering piece of cake, but even after seeing this Nezumi kept shuffling the spare items around, unable to remember eating the slice and wondering if Shion had broken into his apartment to steal it.

He had just shut his fridge in defeat when there was a knock on his door, and his first thought was that it had to be the guy he’d kicked out. He’d probably forgotten his phone.

Nezumi went to the door without putting on clothes, and there was Shion.

“Shit,” Nezumi cursed and slammed the door shut, acutely aware he was naked.

Shion was silent on the other side of the door.

“Give me a second,” Nezumi called, heading back to his bedroom to pull on the pair of boxers bunched at the foot of his bed before returning to the door and opening it again. “What time is it? Why are you here? Did you take my cake?”

“Did you just ask if I took your cake?” Shion asked, walking in even though Nezumi didn’t move out of the doorway, which meant he pushed past Nezumi, hand warm when it briefly touched Nezumi’s bare side.

Nezumi watched Shion settle at his kitchen table before he closed the front door.

“It’s half past two,” Shion said, looking at his watch. “And you shouldn’t answer your door naked.” 

“What are you doing here at half past two in the morning?” Nezumi asked.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Then go back home and count some sheep. Why was your first instinct to come here? I could have had company.”

“You did have company. I saw him leave.”

“Are you stalking me?” Nezumi asked, sitting across from Shion.

Shion just looked at him, his eyes trailing unabashedly over Nezumi’s chest. Nezumi crossed his arms.

“What are you doing here, Shion?” he asked again.

Shion’s eyes slid up again, met Nezumi’s gaze solidly. “That guy looked like he was in his twenties, right? So did the guy here last night. And the girl before that.”

Nezumi opened his lips, then shut them. Then opened them again. “You are stalking me.”

“I’m not, I’m just making relevant observations.”

“Relevant to what?” Nezumi demanded. “Do you stand at your door each night watching through the peephole to see who leaves my apartment?”

“The methods of observation don’t matter!” Shion said, sounding flustered, and Nezumi was so shocked he could think of nothing to say. Shion flattened his hands on Nezumi’s table in front of him and stared at them, then looked back up at Nezumi, his gaze less solid now, more hesitant. “The guy today, he could have been twenty-one. Don’t you think?”

“What, his age? How should I know? I didn’t ID the guy, he looked old enough to be legal.”

“So you don’t care how old he was as long as he was legal,” Shion pressed, and suddenly Nezumi understood.

“Are you—Are you serious? And of all times to do this, two in the morning seemed best?”

“I told you I wanted a present for getting my PhD,” Shion said, voice a bit too loud.

“You’re not serious. You can’t be,” Nezumi said, gaping at the kid.

“What does it matter to you? Sex doesn’t mean anything to you, you average five people a week, and they’re always different! It’s truly a feat you haven’t gone through all of Tokyo by now.”

“Stop observing me, you’re fucking insane,” Nezumi snapped, standing up.

“I had a hypothesis, and I needed to prove it, and I did prove it,” Shion said. “Sex doesn’t matter to you. So why not?”

“Why not fuck you. That’s what you’re saying. Right?” Nezumi demanded, and Shion looked at him for several seconds before he swallowed and spoke.

“Maybe it’ll get you out of my system. Maybe this is what I need to do to stop thinking about you like this. I don’t even see other people, Nezumi, I’ve tried, and I can’t even see them when they’re in front of me! It’s like I have a sickness. Isn’t this worth a try? It’s driving me crazy,” he said, words hushed and rapid.

Nezumi stared. After their conversation in the hospital when Shion was sixteen, five years before, Shion acted like he always did. Nezumi had all but forgotten the guy had a crush. Figured if anything, once he started university, he’d found someone else to fawn over, maybe even had some secret relationship he was too embarrassed to talk about.

He’d never expected this.

“And it’s not like you’re straight, I see guys come out of here more often than girls. Is it that I’m not your type? Is it the hair? The scar?” Shion asked, his voice faltering.

Nezumi just looked at him. He couldn’t tell Shion the scar intrigued the hell out of him. He couldn’t tell Shion he liked the hair, he found himself wishing Japan had a larger population of albino men. He couldn’t encourage the kid like that.

Shion was looking at his hands on the table again. He’d knotted his fingers together and was squeezing them tight. “I’ve tried, Nezumi. I told you about my friend Safu from university, she even asked me out, but I didn’t feel anything for her. So then I thought maybe it’s just guys, but I tried a dating app, Safu helped me set it up, and—and nothing. None of them interested me, I looked at them and felt nothing, and it’s always been like that since I was a kid, there was never anyone I noticed but you. You ruined me, okay, it’s your fault!”

Nezumi held up a hand, as the kid was getting worked up. “Shion, take a breath—”

“And I tried hooking up with one guy, and I couldn’t do more than kiss him without making an excuse to leave. It’s like there’s something wrong with me, all I can think about is you. Even when I masturbate, my mind always comes back to you even when I watch porn.”

“Jesus, Shion, don’t just blurt out everything you’re thinking,” Nezumi snapped.

Shion stared up at him. “What do I do? What am I supposed to do?”

Nezumi pushed his fingers through his bangs and held them up off his face. “First, you have to go home. You can’t be here at two in the morning asking me to fuck you.”

“Why not?”

“What kind of question is that? What if your mother found out? I’m too old for you, Shion.”

“But not for that guy that just left? And half the people that come in here?”

“You’re only twenty-one, that guy was probably around, I don’t know, twenty-three at least. And that’s not the point,” Nezumi said, waving his hand in dismissal. “You know that’s not the point.”

“It would just be once, that’s all I’m asking. It won’t ruin our friendship, nothing can ruin that. It’s just sex, it doesn’t have to mean anything, I know it doesn’t to you.”

“And how do you know that? I might care for that man that just left very much,” Nezumi retorted.

“Then what was his name?” Shion shot back.

“Akihiko.”

“You made that up.”

Nezumi sighed. “Shion. Don’t argue with me. It’s pathetic. I know I don’t need to explain this to you. I babysat you when you were six. I’m like your uncle.”

Shion crinkled his nose. “You’re not. Don’t say that.”

Nezumi crossed his arms, wondering what was more disgusting than the suggestion of an uncle, what would turn Shion off the idea of him. He leaned down, hands against the table and arms straight to hold him up so he was at eye level with Shion. “Okay, how’s this? When you first moved in here, I wanted to fuck your mother.”

“Nezumi!” Shion leapt out of his chair.

“Am I out of your system yet?”

“That’s a lie. Admit it,” Shion demanded, but his expression remained horrified.

“It’s not a lie. Why do you think I moved all your furniture in? Why do you think I babysat you? You think I gave a shit about a little kid?”

“You’re the worst!” Shion yelled, already leaving the kitchen and heading to the front door.

“And the babysitting worked cause we hooked up!” Nezumi called after him, even though that had never happened, but what good would the truth be for Shion?

He was off limits. Nezumi had decided this long ago. It was hardly a decision. It was a fact. Nezumi didn’t see a kid anymore when he looked at Shion, not since the dramatic change in his appearance at sixteen, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t just about Shion having been a kid. Everyone was a kid at some point.

What mattered was that Shion was someone in Nezumi’s life, someone important, and it’d been a long time since anyone was important. Nezumi wasn’t about to mess this up. He wasn’t about to fuck Shion and break his heart, and he sure as hell wouldn’t entertain the notion of a relationship with the kid. Shion was going to die, and that was going to hurt no matter what, and Nezumi had long since come to terms with that. He wasn’t trying to get any more pain and suffering out of the eventual death of the guy than he had to.

Nezumi’s front door slammed, announcing Shion’s exit, and then the door across the hall slammed—no doubt waking Karan.

Hopefully she’d play along if Shion chose to share his newfound false knowledge with her. Nezumi figured she would. She understood that nothing good could ever come out of a relationship with Nezumi and her son.

*

Nezumi didn’t have to wonder for long if Shion told his mother about their conversation. Karan was in the kitchen the next morning when Nezumi came into the bakery to help her prep.

“Shall I take over or get the front ready?” Nezumi asked, walking into the kitchen where Karan was washing a bowl of cherries.

She turned off the faucet and looked up at him. “I’m surprised you’re here so early after your late night.” 

“I don’t have a watch, I don’t know what time it is. Is it early?” Nezumi asked mildly, stepping up to the sink to wash his hands, but Karan didn’t move from it.

“You told him we slept together. Are you trying to traumatize him?”

“I hope that doesn’t mean you refuted the story,” Nezumi said slowly, eyeing her.

“I expected better from you,” Karan said, setting the colander of cherries on the side of the sink.

“It was the only way to get him out of my apartment! He was propositioning me, Karan.”

“I’m sure you’ve had practice turning down many people previous to my son without having to use the ‘I fucked your mom’ line,” Karan said, raising an eyebrow.

Her curse surprised him, and Nezumi wondered if she was actually pissed. He eyed her carefully. “Sure, but I don’t give a shit about hurting those peoples’ feelings.”

“And what about what you told Shion is sparing his feelings?” Karan asked.

Nezumi exhaled hard. “You’re supposed to be on my side. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“What does that mean?” Karan asked quickly.

“What does what mean?”

“Trying to do the right thing?” Karan asked, and now her words were slow as if she was turning them over. Her shoulders fell. “Oh, Nezumi.”

“What?” Suddenly, Karan seemed dismayed, disappointed with him, and Nezumi couldn’t keep up. It was too early in the morning for this kind of conversation. It was too early in the morning for any conversation, really.

“You said I didn’t have to worry. You said the idea was ridiculous.”

“You don’t, and it is,” Nezumi insisted.

“If it was truly impossible to you, you would have said that. But instead you said you were trying to do the right thing. Trying to do the right thing means you want to do the wrong thing and you’re trying to take the moral high ground against your own wishes.”

Nezumi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Karan, don’t turn my words against me. The sun isn’t even up. I have no idea what I’m saying. Your son kept me up until three in the morning with his craziness, so I got about two hours of sleep. Let’s proceed with that in mind. I’m a zombie right now.”

Karan pointed at him. “You’re not a zombie. You’re a liar. I trusted you, Nezumi.”

Nezumi looked at her solidly. “As you should. Now will you let me wash my hands?”

Karan watched him with narrowed eyes—an unnatural look on her usual soft features—but moved away from the sink. Nezumi washed his hands, acutely aware that Karan was standing beside him staring at him the entire time.

“You want the back or front?” he asked her again, deciding he’d pretend she wasn’t glaring at him.

Karan said nothing. Just held her colander of cherries to her side and looked at him.

“I’ll take the front then. What specials should I write on the board?”

“Nezumi, I don’t judge you or fault you for the way you live your life. I’ve been fully aware that strangers have been streaming in and out of your apartment nightly since I first moved here—”

Nezumi’s jaw tightened. “None of this is your business—”

“—and that’s up to you,” Karan said, raising her voice to speak over him. “If that’s what you want, I understand. You want to avoid intimacy, you’re protecting yourself, it’s easier to be with strangers than anything else, I understand that, I do.”

Nezumi exhaled deeply. He leaned against the sink and let Karan talk. She was where Shion got his stubbornness, and as much as he wanted to escape this conversation, he knew it’d be a waste of energy—which he didn’t have much of at the moment.

Worry wrinkled Karan’s face. When they’d met, she hadn’t had any wrinkles. Nezumi hated that she had them now when he still didn’t.

“But this is my son. He’s not a stranger. He can’t be one of those people,” she said.

“I don’t want him to be.”

“I want you to be happy, Nezumi, I really do. I think of you as family, and maybe you don’t want to hear that, but that’s how it is. But this can’t be how you find happiness. Not Shion,” Karan said sternly.

Nezumi glared. “You’re starting to annoy me. I told you I don’t want him. What do you want me to do, make a blood vow? Swear on my mother’s grave?”

Karan said nothing, but Nezumi didn’t give her the chance to.

“Is it that you think I can’t control myself? That he’ll keep throwing himself at me, and at some point I just won’t be able to stop myself any longer? Or is it that the number of people—How did you put it? Oh, right— _streaming_ in and out of my apartment is indicative of some kind of sexual addiction, that it’s only a matter of time before I’ve run out and Shion will be the last person left—”

“Nezumi, don’t attack me,” Karan said coldly.

“You’re attacking me!” Nezumi snapped back.

“I have to protect him!”

“From me? I’m a monster now? I’m a danger to your precious son? Is that what you’ve thought all along? Why ask me to babysit him? Why let me near him? Why let me work in your bakery where he can walk in at any moment? I could be a threat to your customers too, have you thought of that? Are you worried about that? Shouldn’t you be?” Nezumi demanded, more pissed than he could ever remember being, and it wasn’t until he stormed out of the bakery, ignoring Karan’s calls behind him, that he understood why.

It wasn’t just that he’d thought Karan trusted him. It was that he’d trusted her. He hadn’t had a friend in all his life, and she was his first, but it turned out she didn’t know him.

She was the first person to make him feel like he wasn’t alone, but now it was all coming back, and he was forced to remember that this was his reality and everything else had been nothing more than an act.

*

Nezumi plucked another book from its spot, didn’t look at it, and shoved it in another spot.

“Of all the places to wreak havoc, I never thought you’d pick a library.”

Nezumi paid no attention to the voice at the end of the aisle. He stepped farther from it, picked out another book.

“I thought this was a sacred place to you.”

Nezumi flipped through the pages of the book, not reading any of the words.

“Mom told me you didn’t…you know…with her.” 

When Nezumi snapped the book shut, it was louder than he’d anticipated, but Nezumi ignored the sound and turned to Shion, who leaned against the shelf.

“Looking at your face right now is really pissing me off, and I’m already pissed off, so I have to suggest you find somewhere else to be.”

Shion ruffled his hand through his hair, which didn’t help much as he already had bedhead. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to… That’s okay. Of course, it is. We’re friends, and I get that. It’s like how I have no attraction for my friend Safu, and there’s nothing I can do about that, so if it’s the same for you toward me, then I understand.”

“Happy to hear it,” Nezumi replied, crossing his arms and leaning against the shelf too to face Shion.

Shion touched a book between them, sliding his finger along the spine. “We can go back to normal now. And you and Mom too, you can stop fighting.”

“Who said we’re fighting?”

Shion didn’t look away from the book he was tracing. “She was in a bad mood, and when I asked where you were, she said—well, it wasn’t nice.” 

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” 

Shion glanced at him. “You’re fighting about me, right?”

“Not at all.” 

“Is it that…you liked each other? When I was a kid?”

Nezumi inspected Shion. He was supposed to be a genius, but he said the stupidest shit sometimes it was truly amazing. “I thought you figured out I made that up.”

“I know, but you still could have liked her, even if you never did anything. You did babysit me. Why would you do that if not to impress her?” Shion asked.

“What is this, high school gossip? I didn’t like your mother, Shion, she’s my friend. That’s all it is and was and ever will be. Can we put this all to rest now?”

Shion chewed on his bottom lip, then released it. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility that you are willing to sleep with me, and you won’t because my mom told you not to.”

Nezumi sighed and pushed himself off the shelf. “Your mother is not in charge of my sex life, believe it or not,” he said, walking out of the aisle, knowing Shion would follow. “Which I’m going to have to insist we stop discussing.”

“What, your sex life? Why? We’re both adults.”

Nezumi scoffed. “You’re not an adult.” 

“Technically the age of adulthood in Japan is twenty.”

Nezumi didn’t bother replying as he led Shion out the library. The sky had been overcast when he’d gotten to the library after leaving Karan’s, but now it was sunny, blindingly so, a sky that was nearly white and reminded Nezumi of the day Karan and Shion moved in.

He didn’t hold onto many memories, but he’d never forgotten that sky on the day his life changed.

But it hadn’t changed forever. It would snap right back when Karan and Shion were gone. Nezumi had a lifetime with them and that would be it. Just a lifetime and nothing more than that.

Beside him, Shion sighed as if he was the one who had the right to be miserable.

“It’s not really sex I want from you anyway,” he said quietly.

Nezumi glanced at him. The sun caught in his hair and made it glow. Even his eyelashes were white. Nezumi wasn’t sure he’d noticed that before. He hardly looked human, and Nezumi thought about how Shion had asked him if he was a mythical creature. If anyone looked like the mythical creature, like something magical, it was Shion.

“But you know that,” Shion said, looking at Nezumi now, and his red eyes were no longer a shock, but they were still shocking.

Nezumi decided not to lie. “I know that,” he agreed.

Shion’s gaze fell from Nezumi’s. “Is it really just me?”

Nezumi didn’t know if he was lying or not this time, when he replied, “This is one thing I can’t give you, Your Majesty. Forgive me.”

Shion nodded to the ground, and Nezumi wished he would look up again. He wanted to examine the way the white sky caught in his eyelashes. He wanted to guess at what kind of creature Shion might be.

*


	4. Chapter 4

Shion’s early interest in DNA directed his path to health sciences and biomedical engineering. Nezumi didn’t know much about what he did outside of experimenting in his lab to find cures for various diseases, and when he wasn’t doing that, teaching classes at his university. His professor position gave him access to the lab and resources, which Nezumi figured was why he did it, though Shion told him several times he enjoyed teaching.

This left very little time for Shion to be anywhere else but the University of Tokyo’s campus even long after he graduated. Nezumi had assumed Shion would spend his free time at home, or in the bakery, but soon it was normal for Nezumi not to see the man for month-long stretches.

“It’s disrespectful, really,” Nezumi pointed out, pausing in the weaving of the apple pie crust.

“Nezumi, if you’re going to talk, talk and weave at the same time,” Karan said.

“You’re his mother, he should come home and visit you. What kind of man doesn’t visit his mother? And today, of all days.”

“He has a job, he’s busy,” Karan replied. “Weave, I want the pies ready for the oven in five minutes, and that’s still cutting it close. Why did you let me take such a large order with so little time?”

“It’d be much more manageable if Shion was here to help,” Nezumi said, looking back down at his pie crust.

“Maybe the reason he’s gone so often these days is because he knows how much you obsess over him while he’s not here,” Karan said, her fingers fast as she wove the dough of her own pie.

“Excuse me?” Nezumi asked, staring at her.

“Pie crust, Nezumi! The customer will be here to pick them up at midnight, and it’s a quarter past eleven already.”

“Did you say I was obsessing?”

“If I take it back, will finish your pies in time?” Karan asked, exhaling upward to blow her bangs off her eyes.

Nezumi glanced at the counter. He still had three of his five pies to go, while Karan was already nearly done weaving the crust of her last pie.

“Fine, if you take it back, I’ll finish mine in time,” he said.

“I take it back.”

“I’m glad you decided to be rational,” Nezumi replied, resuming his weaving.

“And I’m doing one of your pies.”

“Do what you want as long as it’s not accusing me of ridiculous things,” Nezumi said, glancing up at Karan to catch her small smile at her own pie.

They worked in silence until midnight, icing the cake that was part of the order as well while the pies baked. Karan rarely did orders after hours, and Nezumi suspected she’d only taken it because she, too, was eager for a distraction that, for the first time, Shion wasn’t home for his birthday.

At midnight exactly, the woman who’d made the order came, and Nezumi helped bring the pies and cake to her car parked along the curb outside the bakery. After loading the boxes in her back seat, he was about to return to the bakery when the woman caught his wrist in her hand.

“I’m so sorry, but I have to ask. You’re Eternal Eve, aren’t you? I saw your show, _Romeo and Juliet_ I believe, oh, it must have been twenty-five or thirty years ago. You were Juliet.”

“It’s not me,” Nezumi said, slipping his hand free from the woman and smiling, used to this though it’d been a while. “I’m honored you’d mistake me for such a beautiful actor.”

“But it is you,” the woman insisted. She was old, but not nearly as old as Nezumi.

“It’s not,” Nezumi said, stepping back from her, then again, then turning and walking to the bakery, quickly but not quick enough to make it before a hand was on his wrist again, grip stronger this time, just as Nezumi reached out for the bakery’s front door.

Nezumi gritted his teeth and stared at the bakery’s front door and made himself speak evenly. “Ma’am, really, I’m not—”

“Eternal Eve? But you must be, I’d never forget the face of the most beautiful—”

Nezumi whirled around, and then Shion was hugging him, laughing into his ear, the tip of his nose cool when it skated across Nezumi’s cheek. “You idiot,” Nezumi said, having to step back to keep his balance. “I was going to hit you in the face.”

“You wouldn’t hit an old lady. Now tell me happy birthday already!”

Shion’s arms were long around Nezumi, sturdy and more substantial than Nezumi remembered them being, though he wasn’t sure that Shion had hugged him since he was a kid. And the man’s body was solid against his, his shoulders almost as wide as Nezumi’s own. When had that happened?

“I don’t think it’s your birthday anymore,” Nezumi said, when Shion let go of him, taking his warmth with him, and Shion looked at his watch.

“Ah, damn, I’m a minute late. You still have to wish me happy birthday though. You didn’t even call me.”

He looked older, but he had every reason to. It was his birthday. He _was_ older.

“All right, all right. Happy—twenty-second?”

“Twenty-third,” Shion corrected, grinning his childish grin. “And I know you know that.”

“You don’t know any such thing,” Nezumi replied, opening the door of the bakery and letting Shion in before him. “I barely remember you, it’s been so long since you last graced us with your presence.”

“You’re so dramatic, I was just here two months ago,” Shion said, and then Karan came running out from behind the counter, bills in her hand that Nezumi assumed she’d been counting.

“Shion!”

“Hi, Mom. Surprise!”

“I thought you and Safu were celebrating together.”

“We did earlier today—or yesterday, I guess, technically—but I missed you guys. I canceled my class tomorrow—ah, today—so I can stay here the whole day, is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay, you don’t need to ask to come home,” Karan said, her hand cupping Shion’s cheek even after she released him from her hug.

Nezumi leaned against one of the tables, his hands in his pockets, watching Karan hug him again as if once wasn’t enough. When she released him again, Shion looked at Nezumi.

“Take me out for a birthday drink.” 

Nezumi blinked at him. They’d never gone out drinking before. Nezumi hadn’t even known Shion drank. “It’s late,” he finally said.

“It’s only midnight, old man.”

“That’s right, I am an old man. And the kitchen’s a mess, I’m not leaving your mother to—”

“Oh, go on, go, it’s fine, I’ve got it,” Karan said, laughing then touching her own face. “Oh, I can’t stop smiling. What a nice surprise.”

“He was only gone for two months,” Nezumi reminded her, and in return he received a knowing look from Karan that made his skin hot.

“Come on!” Shion said, grabbing Nezumi’s hand and pulling him back to the door.

“Can I put back my apron at least?” Nezumi demanded, tugging it off.

“I’ll take it, go on, have fun,” Karan said, taking the apron before Nezumi could insist he’d take it to the kitchen, and then Shion was tugging him harder, and Nezumi had no choice but to follow him out the bakery into the warm September night.

Outside, Nezumi freed his hand from Shion, who walked so close to him their shoulders brushed every few steps.

“You left your mother alone for two months, you could have stayed a bit longer instead of running in and out on her. You’re the only family she has, you know,” he said once they were a block from the bakery, looking at Shion’s profile.

“She’s not alone, she has you. And I’ll be here all day tomorrow. And I Skype Mom twice a week. And we Skyped for an hour this morning. And—”

“Okay, okay,” Nezumi muttered. “Forget it. Where are you taking us anyway?”

“A bar.”

“You know where the bars are around here?”

“No, but I’m not letting you lead. I don’t need you taking me to your usual joint where half the people there have fucked you.”

Nezumi scoffed. “Wow.”

“What? I’m not wrong. But let’s not talk about that, it’s my birthday, I get to choose the topic.”

“It’s not your birthday, it’s the day after your birthday. You weren’t here on your birthday.”

“Did you make me a cake?” Shion asked, elbowing Nezumi’s side.

Nezumi drifted away from him on the sidewalk. “No, I did not.” He could feel Shion looking at him even though he stared straight ahead.

“You’re mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Because of that comment about the bar and the people you’ve fucked?”

“I’m not mad at you, Your Majesty.”

Shion was silent. Nezumi stared up at the sky. No stars as usual. He didn’t know why he still bothered looking.

“You don’t pick up when I Skype you. You don’t pick up when I call you. I’d write letters if I thought you’d read them, but I bet you wouldn’t. I know I’m not here a lot, but I try to keep in touch. You can’t be mad at me for that,” Shion finally said.

“I said I wasn’t mad.”

“I only stay away because—because it’s hard for me to be here. Around you. I was giving myself distance.”

Nezumi looked at him, and Shion stopped walking, so Nezumi stopped too. They stood on opposite sides of the sidewalk, Nezumi at the edge of the curb and Shion closer to the shops. The sidewalk was empty, which was strange for Tokyo, but it was a weekday, though Nezumi wasn’t sure which one. He didn’t keep a calendar. It was Shion’s birthday, or the day after, he supposed, and that was all he knew.

“I thought—I thought if I threw myself into my work, if I put space between us, it’d make things better. But it’s been two years since I’ve been doing this, since I’ve been stopping myself from coming back here more often than I have to to keep Mom from worrying, and it hasn’t worked. I don’t feel any differently than I did.”

Nezumi looked up at the sky again. He knew there were no stars, but it was somewhere to look that wasn’t Shion’s expression. There was a breeze, and it pulled Nezumi’s bangs out from behind his ears so the ends tickled his jaw.

“I wasn’t going to tell you that I still—I wasn’t going to say anything. Let’s pretend I didn’t. Can we?” Shion asked.

Nezumi closed his eyes to the sky, and the blackness of his eyelids looked almost the same. He opened his eyes again, tucked his bangs behind his ears, looked at Shion.

“It’s your birthday. If you want to pretend you didn’t say anything, I’ll pretend.”

“I want to pretend,” Shion said.

Nezumi nodded. Started walking again. “You’re leading the way, right?” he called behind him, when Shion didn’t follow him, and then Shion was jogging to catch up, falling back into step beside him.

They walked in silence for several minutes until Shion said, “I’m not sure when to admit that I have no idea where any bars are. I thought they’d be everywhere, what kind of city is this?”

Nezumi laughed. “We’re in the wrong part. If we take a left at that street, there’s bars a block down.” 

“The same bars that you…?”

“Not all of them. I’ll tell you which ones are fuck-free,” Nezumi replied, glancing at Shion, who didn’t look at him.

Nezumi didn’t look away immediately. He let himself take in Shion’s profile, the harder lines of his jaw, the hollow of his cheek. He still wasn’t eating enough, but that wasn’t surprising. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, like he didn’t sleep much. He worked too hard, but Nezumi wasn’t going to chastise him for that. He knew Karan did that enough for the both of them.

His scar was on this other cheek, but Nezumi could picture it clearly. He wondered what it felt like, that slightly raised skin, and it wasn’t the first time he’d wondered it.

“I know you’re staring at me,” Shion said.

“It wasn’t a secret,” Nezumi replied, and he watched Shion’s lips turn up, the profile of them.

Nezumi wondered what it would feel like, just this fraction of a smile against his own lips—and it wasn’t the first time he wondered that either.

*

Four shots in, it occurred to Nezumi that Shion did not drink as often as he’d insisted when Nezumi ordered their first shots.

This occurred to Nezumi because, hardly a minute after downing his fourth shot, Shion was off his barstool and waving his arms like a lunatic.

“What the hell are you doing?” Nezumi asked him.

“I’m dancing!” Shion shouted, even though there was no reason to shout. The music wasn’t loud, and the bar wasn’t full. Apparently, it was Wednesday, which Nezumi found out when the bartender informed him they specials on shots on Wednesdays.

“Two for one!” she had said, smiling at him, and it seemed like a ridiculously good deal—ridiculous enough that Nezumi knew it wasn’t a real deal, and the bartender was hitting on him, but he took the shots anyway.

“That’s not what dancing looks like,” Nezumi informed the man, spinning in his barstool and leaning his back against the counter of the bar to watch Shion, who was moving his head and shoulders and hips and legs and arms in a way that seemed to have nothing at all to do with each other or the music.

“Yes, it is,” Shion said back, hands over his head now and flapping like he was swatting flies while he turned in a circle that led him straight into an empty table.

“There’s a table there,” Nezumi pointed out, while Shion stared at it.

“When did that get here?”

Nezumi slipped off his barstool. “Come on, Your Majesty, let’s go home now. That’s enough fun.”

Shion grabbed Nezumi’s hands. “No, dance with me.”

“I don’t like this song,” Nezumi said, trying to look into Shion’s eyes, wondering how far gone he was and the likelihood of him throwing up.

“It’s your favorite,” Shion said, his hands releasing Nezumi’s but only so they could skate up Nezumi’s arms and over his shoulders to settle around the back of Nezumi’s neck. This left Shion’s wrists to rest on Nezumi’s shoulders like they were in some kind of high school dance.

He stood too close to Nezumi, their chests nearly touching, but when Nezumi stepped back from him, Shion just stepped forward.

“Shion.”

“We’re locked together, nothing to do about it but dance,” Shion slurred happily.

Nezumi looked around the bar. There wasn’t anyone but a couple at a table near the back and a lone man on the last bar stool at the end of the counter.

Nezumi glanced back at Shion, who was still swaying illogically.

“Are you even hearing the music?”

“Maybe.”

Shion’s face was inches from his. Nezumi put his hands on Shion’s waist and watched Shion’s eyes widen. It wasn’t just the irises that were red now.

“You have to move with the music, not against it,” Nezumi told him.

“I am,” Shion murmured.

“Like this,” Nezumi said, guiding Shion’s hips. Shion wore a t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt was thin, not enough fabric between Nezumi’s hands and Shion’s skin. Nezumi could feel all of Shion’s heat. He was so hot, overheated. He was drunk, and Nezumi wasn’t sure how he was going to get Shion home. He didn’t have the phone Shion had bought him on him right now—he rarely brought it anywhere. Shion probably had his phone. They could call an Uber.

“What are you thinking about?” Shion asked. His eyelids were heavy. He could barely keep his gaze on Nezumi’s face, and Nezumi watched as it kept slipping down, then hiking up again, as if Shion was trying his hardest to keep looking at him.

“How to get home,” Nezumi said.

“Am I dancing right?”

“Yeah,” Nezumi told him. Shion’s shirt had lifted an inch, and Nezumi’s pinky touched his skin. He didn’t mean to, but he didn’t move his hand either.

Shion stepped closer to him, wrists sliding up Nezumi’s shoulders until it was his forearms on Nezumi’s shoulders, and then his elbows.

“You’re too close,” Nezumi told him. Their chests touched. Shion was close enough to kiss, but Nezumi wasn’t going to kiss him. He was drunk. He was Nezumi’s best friend. He was Nezumi’s favorite person in the world. He was Shion.

“I’m not,” Shion said, looking up at Nezumi, a question in his heavy-lidded eyes.

Nezumi wanted to say yes. Wanted to lean down and kiss him, just once. But instead, he shook his head, and Shion looked away from him, and then he leaned forward but only to rest his cheek on Nezumi’s shoulder.

Nezumi didn’t tell him to move. He wasn’t sure if they were still moving to the music or if they were just moving against each other to no beat at all. He thought he could feel Shion’s heartbeat against his chest, but it might have been his own heart. Shion’s cheek was heavy against his shoulder. Nezumi remembered when Shion was small enough that Nezumi could carry him, and sometimes he had—if he and Karan and Shion were at the bakery late enough and Shion fell asleep, Nezumi would scoop him up, be amazed by how light he was, to take him home.

The song ended, and the bartender said from behind them, “Last call, everyone!”

Nezumi couldn’t carry Shion now. The man was too big. He looked down, saw only the thick strands of Shion’s bright hair. He leaned down just a little, and the tip of his nose touched Shion’s hair. The man smelled of sweat and wind and shampoo. Nezumi leaned up again.

“Hey, we have to go home now.”

He felt Shion’s arms tighten around his neck. His own arms were wound around Shion’s lower back, and Nezumi didn’t remember doing that, but he didn’t move them.

“Come on, Your Majesty. I can’t carry you, you have to walk.”

“I can’t,” Shion said. His words seeped through Nezumi’s shirt, and Nezumi felt them on his skin.

“I’ll call an Uber, but I need your phone. You need to let go of me now, you can sit for a little.”

Shion shook his head against Nezumi’s shoulder.

“Shion, don’t be difficult.”

“Just a little longer,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi froze, then unwound his arms from Shion’s waist. He reached up, wrapped a hand around each of Shion’s arms, and pulled them gently until they were no longer around Nezumi’s neck but by Shion’s sides.

“Sit here,” Nezumi said, not letting go of Shion’s arms and guiding him to a chair at the table he’d previously bumped into. “Give me your phone.” 

Shion fished out his phone and dropped it on the table before propping an elbow beside it and resting his face in his hand. His eyes immediately closed.

Nezumi kicked the chair leg, and Shion’s eyes opened again. “Don’t fall asleep. Hold out your thumb.”

Shion held out his thumb, and Nezumi pressed his phone against it to unlock it. He scanned Shion’s screen for the Uber app and found it in the top right. When he’d requested one and was informed it was just around the corner, he pocketed Shion’s phone and kicked Shion’s chair leg again because again the man’s eyes had closed.

“No sleeping, let’s go, it’s here already.”

“What’s here?” Shion mumbled.

“Our ride home. Come on, birthday boy, you can do it,” Nezumi said, reaching down to help Shion stand up. Once the guy was up, Nezumi wrapped Shion’s arm around his own shoulders and led Shion out the bar, stopping at the counter to slap money on it for the drinks.

Outside, the air was cool, and that seemed to revive Shion, who took some of his weight off Nezumi’s side, though he still leaned fully against Nezumi, his body radiating heat.

“All you had was four shots. Have you ever drunk before?”

“Of course not, drinking kills brain cells,” Shion murmured.

Nezumi rolled his eyes. Shion started leaning forward, and Nezumi caught him back, wrapping an arm around Shion’s waist to steady him. “Careful there.”

“That wasn’t me, it was gravity,” Shion mumbled.

“Our ride will be here soon, try to stay upright until then.”

At his words, a car fitting the description on Shion’s app pulled up against the curb, and Nezumi had to half drag Shion to it, opening the back door and stuffing Shion in before slamming the door on him and going in from the other side.

“He gonna vomit in my car?” the driver asked.

“Of course not,” Nezumi said back, meeting the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror until the man started driving. When the driver’s eyes were on the road, Nezumi glanced at Shion, who was lying across the back seat, his cheek on Nezumi’s thigh.

Nezumi looked at him for a moment, then reached down, ran his fingers through Shion’s hair once, then again, then a last time, letting his fingers rest there until the ride was over—just a few blocks, not long enough to count.

In front of their apartment building, Nezumi had to lift Shion—who seemed to be fully asleep by this point—up by his shoulders, prop him against the door on his side, then leave out his own side, walk around the car, and open Shion’s door, ready to catch Shion when he slid sideways as the door opened.

With his torso in Nezumi’s arms and his legs still in the car, Shion’s eyes opened.

“What’s happening?” he garbled.

“I’m about to drag you out this car by your arms. Want to help me?” Nezumi asked.

Shion mumbled something incoherent, but then he was stumbling out the car. Nezumi let Shion lean on him while he shut the car door and turned them around to face their building.

“Can you make it in there?” he asked Shion, whose weight was entirely against Nezumi’s side.

“Do I have to?” Shion whined.

“Yes.”

Shion pushed his face into Nezumi’s shoulder, and Nezumi let him for a second, then wrapped his arm around Shion’s waist again and pulled him forward. “Come on, almost there.”

They took the elevator, which Nezumi rarely did since they were only the third floor, and then they were in front of their apartments, Nezumi walking Shion to his own.

“Let me stay at yours.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So we don’t wake up Mom,” Shion said.

Nezumi looked at Shion’s door, then sighed, turned them around and led them the few steps to his own door. “You’re sleeping on the couch.”

“I know.”

“And you’re not vomiting anywhere.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t have any spare blankets or pillows.”

“Good.”

Nezumi unlocked his door and kicked it open, then led Shion to his living room without bothering to stop and take off his shoes. He guided Shion to sit on the couch, where Shion immediately slid sideways and laid with his torso over the cushions and his legs still hanging off the edge.

“Hold on,” Nezumi told him, leaving him only to close his front door and toe off his boots before returning to Shion, crouching down, and untying Shion’s sneakers.

“What’re you doing?”

“Taking off your shoes. Stay awake a few minutes longer, I’m going to get you water, and I want you to drink the whole glass.”

“No.”

“Shion, don’t be difficult, I’m being very nice to you, and you don’t want me to start being mean,” Nezumi warned him, peeling off his sneakers and bringing them to the front door, then stopping at the kitchen to fill a glass of water.

When he returned to the couch, Shion was as Nezumi had left him, so Nezumi set the water on the table and lifted Shion’s legs, placing them on the couch cushions.

“Lift up your head,” Nezumi said, while Shion blinked slowly at him.

“Why?”

“Magic potion,” Nezumi replied, holding out the glass of water.

Shion eyed it. “What’s in it?”

Nezumi paused, then held it closer. “It’ll make you live forever,” he said quietly, letting himself believe for a moment that this could be true.

Shion stared at the glass, then sat up so abruptly he moaned and pressed his hand to his lips.

“You okay?” Nezumi asked, and Shion nodded, breathed deeply through his nose, then dropped his hand.

He reached out. Took the glass. Drank it in three gulps, then gave it back to Nezumi and laid back on the couch. His lips were wet from the water. His eyes were open still.

“Go to sleep now,” Nezumi told him.

“You lied about the potion. That’s water.”

“Yeah, I lied.”

“So I won’t live forever.”

“No, you won’t.” 

Shion didn’t say anything to this. Just kept looking at Nezumi, who stayed under Shion’s gaze for a minute, then stood up abruptly.

“Are you cold?”

“You don’t have extra blankets,” Shion murmured.

“Who told you that?” Nezumi asked, walking away from him. His entire body itched. He didn’t know why he’d said that about the water. He didn’t know why he’d let Shion sleep over. Not that it mattered. It was just his couch.

When he returned to it with the only blanket he owned from his own bed, Shion was asleep. His eyes were closed and his lips parted, his breaths making a slight whistling sound on the exhales.

Nezumi covered him with the blanket, tucking it behind Shion’s back and under his socked feet. He stood up when he was done, then crouched down again, then lowered himself to his knees by Shion’s head. He reached out, touched Shion’s hair. He leaned close, close enough to feel Shion’s exhales on his lips. His breath smelled of vodka.

To kiss him now would be harmless. Shion wouldn’t know. It would get it out of Nezumi’s system.

While Nezumi thought about it, he breathed in each of Shion’s alcohol exhales and looked at Shion’s eyelashes. He leaned away instead of kissing the man. He took his hand from Shion’s hair and reached out with just his thumb, grazed just the pad of it along Shion’s eyelashes. They were so light against his skin Nezumi barely felt them. He could deny the touch completely.

He stood up then and left the couch. Behind him, Shion’s whistling breath grew fainter and fainter. Nezumi brushed his teeth, peed, then went to his bedroom. He left the door of his bedroom open, stripped to his boxers, and climbed on his own blanket-less bed. He laid on his back, absolutely still, holding his own breath and listening for Shion’s.

*

Nezumi woke to the sound of pounding, and his first thought was he was dying until he remembered he couldn’t do that.

He sat up in bed, then heard a voice accompanying the pounding. “Nezumi!”

It was Karan. He jumped out of bed, feeling bleary-eyed and exhausted and hitting his shoulder against his own bedroom doorway.

“What the fuck is going on?” Shion asked, his voice garbled as Nezumi passed by the living room. Nezumi glanced at the couch to see that Shion had pulled the blanket up over his head.

“It’s your mother,” Nezumi told him, and then he was at the front door, apologizing even before he had it fully open. “Karan, he’s here, I’m sorry, I meant to text you he was sleeping over, but then I completely forgot—”

“I can’t believe you!” Karan shouted, pushing him back by his chest, and Nezumi was at first taken aback—he’d expected worry and panic that her son hadn’t been home when she woke, but that was rage in her eyes—until he realized he was only wearing boxers.

“Wait, Karan—No—That’s not—”

Karan shoved past Nezumi and disappeared down his hallway.

“Karan!” Nezumi called after her, closing his front door and walking into the living room to look at Shion, who had lowered his blanket enough that only the messy sprout of his white hair and his squinted eyes showed.

“Where’d she go?” he whispered.

“She thinks you’re in my bedroom,” Nezumi replied.

Shion’s eyes slid around Nezumi’s body. “Is that a burn scar on your back?”

Nezumi turned so his back was out of Shion’s view.

“Where is he?” Karan shouted.

“He’s here, Karan,” Nezumi said back, rubbing his hand over his face.

Karan emerged from the hallway and stopped short on seeing her son on the couch.

Shion lowered the blanket more to reveal his lips. “Hi, Mom.”

Karan stared at him, then looked at Nezumi. “You didn’t?”

Nezumi shook his head.

Karan’s shoulders fell. She exhaled hard and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, thank god.”

Nezumi felt his jaw clench and worked to unclench it. He had no reason to be pissed. Karan was right not to trust him. After what he’d felt last night, after what he’d wanted to do, Nezumi no longer trusted himself.

“I feel like I’m missing something. What’s happening?” Shion asked, his voice sounding scratchy. He sat up and then groaned, curling his back and resting his elbows on his knees and wrapping his hands in his hair to prop his head up.

“It’s called a hangover,” Nezumi told him, then turned to Karan, who had taken her hands from her face. “You want him home? I can make him breakfast.”

“That’s fine.” Karan gave Shion a last glance, then left the living room, and Nezumi followed her to the front door where she opened the door, then turned to look at him.

“I’m sorry.”

Nezumi shrugged. “Understandable misconception.”

“You guys had fun last night?”

“Your son is a terrible dancer,” Nezumi informed her, and Karan laughed, the last of her worry falling from her face.

“I hope you taught him.”

“I did,” Nezumi said, and Karan’s smile froze.

She looked at him carefully, and Nezumi couldn’t think of what to say to her, couldn’t think of how to reassure her, again, that he’d leave her son alone.

“He’s in love with you,” she finally said, and Nezumi took a step back from her. He didn’t think there were any words she could have said that he’d have expected less than these.

“Of course he’s not.”

“Of course he is,” Karan said back, but her voice was gentle. “I can’t tell you what to do. I know that.”

“It’s not like that. It’s a crush. He’ll get over it.”

Karan was looked over Nezumi’s shoulder, so Nezumi did too, but Shion wasn’t there. When he looked back at Karan, she had stepped out his doorway.

“You’ll both come to the bakery after breakfast, right?” she asked, and Nezumi nodded.

She waved then, turning to go to her apartment, and Nezumi waited until she was inside of it before closing his own door and returning to the living room, where Shion was in the same position—head in his hands and staring at the floor between his knees.

“Eggs are good for hangovers,” Nezumi told him.

“I’ll eat a hundred,” Shion mumbled.

Nezumi’s smile was faint. He wondered if Shion was in love with him. He wondered if he’d known that all along.

*

By noon, Shion was still pale, but he was groaning with much less frequency, so Nezumi figured the worst of his hangover was over.

“Want to make the tiramisu?” Nezumi asked, watching Shion struggle with an icing bag.

“The top won’t come off.”

“Let me do it. I’ll finish the cupcakes.”

“I can do them.”

“They look awful, Shion, you’re either still drunk or out of practice or both. Do the tiramisu.”

Shion glared at the icing bag, then slid it across the counter to Nezumi. “Fine.”

Nezumi took the top off easily, scooped in the icing he’d made earlier that day into the bag with the side of a rubber spatula, then replaced the top and started icing the cupcakes. He’d re-ice the ones Shion had done, but he’d wait until Shion was busy with the tiramisu so there’d be a chance he wouldn’t notice.

At the fourth cupcake, Nezumi realized there was no movement beside him, and looked to his side to see Shion was staring at him, leaning with his elbows on the counter and his face resting in his palms.

“What are you doing?”

“I was thinking I’d move out of my mother’s apartment,” Shion said. 

Nezumi squeezed the icing bag too hard and cursed, glaring at the mess of icing on a cupcake before looking back at Shion. “It’s not your mother’s apartment, it’s yours too.”

“I’m old enough to move out.”

“Why would you bother, you rarely sleep here anyway. Don’t you already have a separate apartment with that friend of yours?”

“It’s Safu’s apartment, she just lets me sleep there.”

“So you’re freeloading.”

“She won’t take my offers to pay half of rent! Her grandmother was rich and left her a lot of money,” Shion said. “But I do feel bad staying there without paying, which is why I’m thinking I’ll get my own place. What do you think?”

Nezumi turned back to the cupcakes, trying to scrape off the extra icing on the one he’d just messed up. “I think you’ve got it good. A free place with your mother and a free place with that rich friend of yours. Don’t see why you’re so eager to pay rent, it’s not as fun as you seem to think it is.”

“I want to take responsibility for my own living space. It’s the mature thing to do.”

“The mature thing to do is to take advantage of your good fortune and not try so hard to get rid of your money.”

“Every time I come home, my mom will know my whereabouts.”

“And why’s that an issue? Have you got somewhere secret you’re trying to be?”

Shion was silent for a moment. Nezumi finished the un-iced cupcakes so all that was left was to re-ice Shion’s. He started scraping the icing off of them, figuring if Shion was going to be offended there was nothing he could do about it.

“She was mad this morning because she thought we’d slept together,” he finally said.

Nezumi concentrated on the cupcakes. “So you want a bachelor pad because you think your mother doesn’t want you having sex.”

“She doesn’t want me having sex with _you._ I doubt it’s all sex she’s opposed to, she’s not old-fashioned.”

Nezumi refilled the icing bag with the icing he’d scraped off Shion’s cupcakes.

“But if I had my own place outside of that apartment building, you wouldn’t have to worry about her knowing.”

Nezumi held the icing bag over a cupcake but didn’t squeeze it. He set the bag down and looked at Shion, who was standing up straight now, fidgeting with the string of his apron.

“Don’t start this again.” 

“She’s the reason you won’t even consider me.”

“Because otherwise you’d be irresistible? Really, I’m curious, how did you get such a high opinion of yourself? I’ve never met anyone with as much undeserved vanity as you.”

Nezumi expected Shion to get pissed, but instead, he seemed to be searching Nezumi’s face for something.

Nezumi waited for Shion’s response, but there wasn’t any. “We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, when Shion just kept looking at him. “I won’t keep having it.”

“But does it make sense to you?” Shion asked, and even though his voice shook he didn’t break Nezumi’s gaze. “Does it make sense that one person could feel so strongly for another when the other feels nothing at all?”

It was proof of Shion’s age that he could say stuff like this, wear his heart on his sleeve over and over and not give a damn about it being hurt. He didn’t know real hurt, he didn’t know to shield himself from it.

It was a relief when the kitchen door suddenly swung open, and Nezumi was saved from replying.

“Where are the cupcakes, boys? I’ve been waiting on that order,” Karan said, standing in the doorway.

Nezumi looked at the half un-iced cupcakes in front of him. “Two minutes.”

“Can you make it one, please? And, Shion, honey, if you’re not going to do anything but distract Nezumi, come help me up front.”

“I am doing things!” Shion objected.

“He’s being very distracting,” Nezumi told Karan, who frowned at Shion.

“I know you took the day off your own work, but the bakery is still open, and I can’t make my customers wait so long for simple orders, you know that, hon. Some tables need to be cleaned up front anyway, I can’t keep up with it and the register, can you help me?”

Shion groaned but walked around the counter and past his mother out the kitchen door.

“Bring those up when you’re done?” Karan asked, and then she was gone.

Alone in the kitchen, Nezumi put the icing bag down despite his one-minute deadline. In his head was Shion’s question still, which should have been ridiculous, easy to brush off. There was no reason for it to be in Nezumi’s head still, to be distracting, to feel important.

_Does it make sense that one person could feel so strongly for another when the other feels nothing at all?_

*

When Shion left again, he didn’t come back for two months. And then it was three. Then four. Then five. And then half a year had passed since Nezumi had seen Shion, and this felt a little ridiculous, seeing as the guy was not even an hour away by car and just over an hour by train.

“Aren’t you worried?” Nezumi asked Karan. She’d surprised him by coming to one of his night shows, and they were walking out the theater together. It was right across the street from their apartment building, and Nezumi stopped at the curb even though the road was empty.

Karan stopped too. “I Skyped him last night.”

Nezumi shoved his hands in his pockets.

“He says you don’t pick up his Skype calls. Or his phone calls.”

“How is that an acceptable substitute?”

“It’s better than nothing,” Karan said. “You could always come when I visit him at the university. I always ask you to come, and I go at least once a week.”

Nezumi wrinkled his nose. Looked both ways down the street even though it was clearly still empty and then started crossing it, Karan beside him.

“But you can’t do that. He has to be the one that comes to you. That way, it’s him who wants to see you, rather than you who wants to see him,” Karan said, when they were on the other side and in front of their building.

“That’s ridiculous.” 

“Then why don’t you visit him?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what? Skipping rehearsals? Experimenting in my bakery? I’ll happily give you a day off.”

They were at the front door of the building, and Nezumi had his hand on the handle but didn’t open it. “Why? It’d encourage him if I visited. That’s what you want?”

Karan reached out, pulled the door open herself and led them in. “You’re an important part of his life. I don’t want you to avoid him, and certainly not on my behalf.”

“Has it occurred to you that he’s avoiding me?” Nezumi asked as they started climbing the stairs.

“Of course. I know he’s avoiding you. The reason my son won’t come home is because he doesn’t want to see you, which means I don’t get to see him either,” Karan said, a stair ahead of Nezumi and not looking back so he couldn’t see her expression.

“Are you mad at me?”

“I suppose it’s not your fault.”

“It’s not!” Nezumi said, annoyed.

“That’s what I said.”

Nezumi clenched his jaw, and Karan said nothing more, and then they were at their floor, and Nezumi stopped in the hallway, knowing Karan had more to say to him and waiting in front of his door.

She took her keys from her bag and looked at them in her palm as if waiting for them to tell her something before looking at Nezumi. “When I first met you, I never imagined my son would fall in love with you. If I’d known that, if I’d known the complications you would cause in our lives, I don’t know if I’d have asked you to help us move that first day. I don’t know if I’d have invited you for dinner, or brought you so many baked goods, or asked you to help set up the bakery, or asked you to babysit Shion.”

Nezumi leaned back against his front door. Karan was forty-four years old and it showed all over her face in the way years refused to show on Nezumi’s.

“But we can’t go back in time. I did ask you to help us move, and to help me in the bakery, and to babysit Shion, and to get to know us, and to let us get to know you. And because of that, because of all the years that have passed in this apartment, you are part of our lives. I love you, Nezumi, a deep love that I’ve felt for only a small handful of people in my life, a love that is only natural, that I can’t help, that isn’t a choice but just the truth. You are so woven into my life and even more so into Shion’s life that I would never suggest you extricate yourself, and I don’t want you to. That’s not an option to me. Is it an option to you? To avoid him forever?”

Nezumi understood, now, how easy it was for Shion to say everything he felt. He had learned from his mother not to be ashamed of his feelings. Not to hold them back, not even a little.

“I don’t want to avoid him, Karan, but when I see him, I can’t help but hurt him. Your son is full of confessions, he never runs out, it’s like he wants to get hurt.”

Karan smiled lightly. “Isn’t wisdom supposed to come with the years? You have many more years in your past than I do. I won’t come up with any answers that you can’t. Good night, Nezumi.”

Nezumi lifted his hand in a halfhearted wave, and Karan turned to her apartment door, unlocked it, went inside, and shut it softly behind her.

Nezumi didn’t move from where he stood. He leaned his head back against his door and looked up at the hallway ceiling. Karan was right—he had years, more than her, more than anyone. But he doubted any number of years would be enough to know what to with a guy like Shion.

*


	5. Chapter 5

Nezumi got Shion’s course schedule from Karan and intended to be on time so he could slip in with a mass of students undetected, but he got lost around the university’s campus despite the tour Shion had given him years ago, and by the time he got to Shion’s lecture hall, he was twenty minutes late.

He stood outside the double doors, hearing the unmistakable sound of Shion rambling from within it. He supposed being a professor was a good gig for Shion. He got paid to talk, his favorite thing in the world.

Though it’d been half a year since Nezumi had heard Shion’s voice, it was more familiar than any other sound, and Nezumi felt himself relaxing, enjoying even just standing outside the double doors to listen.

“Are you going in?”

Nezumi realized he’d closed his eyes and opened them. A girl—clearly a student judging from her backpack and armful of books—stood in front of him and pointed to the double doors. She was panting, out of breath—late like Nezumi, apparently.

“Right, yeah, after you,” Nezumi said, opening one of the doors, which creaked much more loudly than Nezumi could have ever anticipated, and half the lecture hall peered around from their seats to stare.

Shion, too, was looking up—the lecture hall had stairs that led downward, and Shion stood on a stage on the lowest level.

Nezumi waved while the girl in front of him scampered down the stairs, ducking her head.

Shion didn’t wave back. He just stared at Nezumi, which in turn made more students stare at him. It was a large lecture hall and mostly full. Nezumi scanned the back rows for empty seats, but none were empty until the fifth or sixth row down, and even then he’d have to slide into the middle of the row between students’ knees and the backs of the chairs in front of them. The lecture hall, clearly, was not suited for latecomers.

Nezumi ended up heading down the stairs to the front row, where there was exactly one empty seat. By the time he sat down, Shion had started talking again.

While he rambled on about cell structure, Nezumi looked around at the other students. They had to be the same age as Shion, some likely older. Nezumi hadn’t thought about the fact that he was such a young professor, but clearly, it didn’t phase Shion, and the students didn’t seem to care that their professor was their own age. They were silent, respectful, not even blowing spitballs at each other or passing notes from what Nezumi could tell.

Nezumi stopped craning his neck to look around and settled in his seat. The chairs had desks that folded down the sides, so Nezumi pulled his out with some difficulty, fascinated. He’d never been in a lecture hall before. He hadn’t even gone to grade school. He was self-taught, educated from devouring shelves at the library and had taken his GED some time ago and failed it then not taken it again. It was strange to be in this lecture hall. Everyone’s lives around him were so normal, and Nezumi found himself staring at the girl sitting beside him. She was typing quickly on her laptop, glancing up from her screen every few minutes to look at Shion. She was pretty enough. Probably Shion’s age too, and she would age with Shion, and she would die when Shion did, and that was what mattered.

Nezumi stopped looking at her. Stared back at Shion, who was talking animatedly, not even looking at notes or a PowerPoint. He was dressed in a button down and a tie even, and he looked older, professional. Nezumi had never entertained a professor fantasy but he couldn’t help himself now. He quickly lost track of what Shion was saying, and the rest of the lecture went by too quickly, and then Shion was dismissing everyone and they were all packing up, dropping their desks back to the sides of the chairs with loud, discordant clangs, speaking all at once.

Nezumi sat still, watching the students seated near him pack up, choosing some more that would be good fits for Shion—not the guy with the Hawaiian shirt, but maybe the guy with the glasses, not the girl with the sullen expression, but possibly the one beside her who giggled in a cute way when her friend showed her something on her phone.

When the seats around Nezumi were cleared and most of the class was in a mass that crowded around the double doors, all trying to get out at the same time, Shion walked over from the front of the room and sat in the chair beside Nezumi’s.

“What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“Do they have rules against student-professor relationships?”

Shion just looked at him. Nezumi still hadn’t slid his desk back down, and he shifted closer to Shion, propped his elbow on the desk and his chin on his palm. Shion leaned back from him.

“Is everything okay?” Shion asked again, after a moment, clearly ignoring Nezumi’s question.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I haven’t seen you for six months, and suddenly you show up in my lecture. You’ve only been to my campus once, and I had to basically drag you here.”

“ _You_ haven’t seen _me_ for six months? You’re the one who hasn’t come home,” Nezumi reminded.

“And the first thing you do is ask me about student-professor relationships,” Shion said, as if Nezumi hadn’t spoken.

“Well? Is the University handbook against them or for them?”

“Why are you here?” Shion asked, his voice just a little louder than normal, but not enough to be a shout.

“I spontaneously developed a deep curiosity about cellular composition.”

Shion stared at him, and then his shoulders seemed to fall. He sat back in his chair, turning and looking to the front of the lecture hall. “Okay, Nezumi,” he said softly.

“Okay, what?” Nezumi asked, bewildered.

“Nothing. I’m happy to see you,” Shion said, even though he wasn’t looking at Nezumi at all and he certainly didn’t look happy.

Nezumi lifted his chin from his palm and dropped his arm on the desk. “Listen, don’t be acting like I’m the one who disappeared. That was you, remember? I’ve been right at home, you could have come any time. And it’s the same building where you grew up, so I know you know the address. What kind of delusion have you painted for yourself?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Shion said, glancing at him from the corners of his eyes.

Nezumi sat up. “You’re pissed.”

“Do I look pissed?” Shion asked mildly, and it was true he did not, but he also didn’t look puppy-dog happy, which was the reaction to his appearance Nezumi had anticipated, at the very least.

It took Nezumi a moment to figure out what Shion did look like: indifferent.

Shion stood up. “It’s good you’re here now anyway, you might as well meet him. Come on.”

“Meet who?” Nezumi asked, slamming his desk down before standing up and following Shion up the stairs of the lecture hall.

“And no, I don’t know what the rulebook says on student-professor relationships,” Shion said, when Nezumi had caught up to him.

“Who am I meeting?”

“Not a student,” Shion replied.

Nezumi turned the words over, trying to unravel them. “You know I don’t like riddles, Your Majesty.”

Shion glanced at him then, a quick look, the coolness he’d been sporting since Nezumi arrived abruptly gone from his features, but then it slid back again.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just been a while since I’ve heard that. _Your Majesty._ ”

“Of course it’s been a while. I’m the only one who calls you that, and you’ve been avoiding me like a child.”

“I’ve called you and texted you many times,” Shion said, almost sounding like he was sighing, like he was exasperated with the conversation, which was ridiculous because if anyone had a right to be exasperated, it was Nezumi.

“Your university is not even an hour away. What use do I have for a phone call or a text?”

“Your aversion to technology really shows your age,” Shion said, as they walked through the double doors of the lecture hall.

“Aversion? What aversion? I just prefer face-to-face interaction.”

Shion laughed a short laugh. “No, you don’t.”

“When did you get to be so impertinent? And where are you taking me?”

“I have lunch plans, it’s a sushi place on campus that students don’t go to often because there’s a cheaper one down the road. But professors get discounts. You’ll like it.”

Nezumi said nothing. It was odd to see Shion here, where he was clearly in his element. As they walked outside the building, students even waved at him, or those passing by him close enough would call out, “Hey, professor!” to which Shion would always respond with a greeting and the student’s name. Nezumi had no idea how he could remember so many names. Half the students looked the same.

“They don’t care that you’re as young as them? Wasn’t it hard to get them to respect you?” Nezumi asked, after the eleventh, _Hi, professor!_

“Not everyone is as concerned about age as you are,” Shion said simply.

Nezumi shoved his hands in his pockets and stopped trying to discern any type of feeling from Shion’s profile outside this new lack of concern he was playing at. If Shion wanted to put on a detached, nonchalant act, that was his choice, and Nezumi doubted it’d last long.

By the time they reached the sushi place, Nezumi’s count of _Hi, professor!’s_ had gone up to thirty-one, and Nezumi was getting aggravated by Shion’s cool and collected demeanor. Where was the kid who was flustered and rambling? Where was the kid who stole glances at Nezumi every five seconds thinking Nezumi wouldn’t notice his stares? 

“You’re different,” Nezumi finally said, when Shion led them to a table against the window. There were three chairs around it. Nezumi sat in the one across from Shion, leaving the one between them empty.

“Am I? I don’t think so. But I suppose six months is a long time, there’s bound to be change.”

“It’s not a long time, actually,” Nezumi said. “And I haven’t changed.”

Shion’s red eyes skated over his face, a lighter look than the heavy, weighted gaze he usually had. “No, you haven’t,” he finally said, and Nezumi felt his shoulders stiffen, worked to relax.

“Who am I meeting?” Nezumi asked, to change the subject, pointing at the empty chair.

Shion’s eyes had left Nezumi’s face, and he was looking behind him. “Hiroki.”

Nezumi turned around to see a guy walking towards their table. Immediately, Nezumi understood, and he had to stop himself from laughing as he turned back to Shion.

“You’re not serious,” he said, grinning.

Shion just looked at him, his expression suddenly wary. 

“Hi, sorry I’m late.” The man who sat in the vacant chair smiled at Shion and reached out to squeeze Shion’s hand resting on the table before looking at Nezumi, who made himself stop grinning, offering instead a polite smile.

“You must be Hiroki,” Nezumi said, extending a hand, and the man reached out, shook it, tilting his head like a dog might.

“Ah, sorry, you are—?”

“That’s Nezumi. A friend,” Shion said quickly. “He visited unexpectedly, I asked him to join us.”

“Oh, great, lovely! Are you…a student?” Hiroki asked.

Nezumi glanced at Shion, then at this Hiroki again. Nezumi was a trained actor, but no amount of acting experience had prepared him for keeping a straight face in a situation like this—the situation being that this Hiroki, clearly Shion’s new beau, was a knock-off version of Nezumi himself.

“No, no, he was my neighbor,” Shion was saying.

“It’s interesting, you look familiar, I could have sworn I’ve seen you on campus,” Hiroki said, tucking his hair behind his ears. It was long as Nezumi’s but down over his shoulders rather than tied up, though Nezumi noted he had a black hair tie on his wrist.

“Perhaps in the mirror?” Nezumi suggested, and then his shin seared, and he cursed under his breath. It was a moment before he realized Shion had kicked him under the table.

“Sorry, what?” Hiroki asked, smiling faintly and doing his dog-like head tilt again.

“Hiroki, can you order for us? I haven’t put ours in yet. I’ll have my usual and Nezumi will have the same thing as me,” Shion said, reaching under the table and then pulling up a wallet. He handed Hiroki a credit card, but Hiroki waved his hand in front of it.

“No, no, I’ve got it. I’ll be right back!” The obedient Hiroki stood up, smiling cheerfully at them before leaving the table to stand in the short line of people in front of the counter.

Nezumi lifted his hand to cover his mouth while Shion glared at him.

“Stop it,” Shion hissed, leaning over the table.

Nezumi shook his head. He was going to burst out laughing, he could barely hold it in a moment longer.

“He does not look like you,” Shion insisted.

Nezumi pressed his palm harder against his lips, his laugh escaping into it until Shion kicked his leg again, this time harder and in the same spot.

“Dammit!” Nezumi snapped, moving his hand from his lips, the pain distracting him from any urge to laugh. “Behave yourself, you animal.”

“You behave yourself!”

“I’m trying, but you could have warned me you’d be reuniting me with my long-lost twin. It’s come as quite a shock, I’m sure you can imagine.”

Shion’s eyes were so narrowed Nezumi doubted he could see through them. He pointed at Nezumi. “He is _not_ your twin. People have long hair, you don’t have the monopoly on that you know, and bangs are the fashion right now.”

“It’s hardly just the hair.”

“His eyes are brown!”

“I think I own that same shirt. Don’t I?”

“You think you’re the only one who has a white shirt with black sleeves? Really, Nezumi?” Shion whispered.

“You’re right, you’re right. We probably just went to the same store, and that’s where he got my boots too. And my height. And my nose. And my—”

“If you don’t stop this now,” Shion warned.

“What? You’ll find someone else who looks like me and punch him in the face?” Nezumi asked, leaning across the table.

“People have types, it’s not an unheard-of phenomenon,” Shion said shortly.

“Yes, of course, you’re right,” Nezumi agreed, nodding and reaching up.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Nezumi said as he pulled out his ponytail.

“Put that back up,” Shion hissed.

“Why? Will you forget who’s who and accidentally kiss me thinking I’m your boyfriend?”

“You wish,” Shion snapped, which made Nezumi laugh so hard he was still catching his breath when Hiroki returned with three stacked Styrofoam containers.

“Looks like you guys are having fun without me,” Hiroki said, cheerful as ever. As much as he looked like Nezumi, Nezumi had to admit the guy’s personality seemed quite divergent.

Nezumi waved his hand, still unable to speak, and wiped at his eyes.

“Ignore him, he’s very immature for his age,” Shion said sullenly.

Hiroki handed out the Styrofoam containers, then gave them each a pair of wooden chopsticks. Nezumi took his but didn’t bother opening his container and instead focused on Hiroki.

“Tell me, how did you two lovebirds meet?” he asked.

“Lovebirds?” Hiroki asked, laughing lightly. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard that one. We’re both professors here.”

“Really? What do you teach?” Nezumi asked. The longer he observed Hiroki, the more he realized the man was older than Shion. That wasn’t strange—Shion was young for a professor. And Shion did have a penchant for older men.

“My specialty is classic literature,” Hiroki said, and Nezumi was glad he hadn’t started eating as he was certain he would have choked.

He felt his smile spreading, but there was nothing he could do about it, and then Shion kicked him again, but Nezumi refused to wince.

“Is that so? I could never get into books myself, it’s all too fantastical. I prefer real facts,” Nezumi replied, earning himself another kick, and he glanced at Shion, who was glaring at him still.

“You’re just like Shion!” Hiroki said.

“Oh, yes, we get that a lot, we’re a lot like twins,” Nezumi said, moving his legs to the side and knowing Shion aimed a rather hard kick at him and missed because the man nearly fell off his chair.

“Are you okay?” Hiroki asked, noticing when Shion lurched like an idiot.

“I’m fine,” Shion replied.

“Sushi gives him gas,” Nezumi said.

“Nezumi,” Shion said sharply.

“Tell me, Hiroki. How old are you?” Nezumi asked, ignoring Shion.

Hiroki laughed. “Let me guess, you think I’m too old for him. I worried the same thing, but you know Shion is mature for his age. I’m thirty-one.”

Nezumi hummed, glancing again at Shion, whose face was red. “I’m not surprised. He’s always liked older men.”

“Hiroki!” Shion said loudly. “You had class this morning, right? How was it?”

Nezumi sat back, pleased to finally be rid of nonchalant Shion, and finally opened his Styrofoam container. He examined the sushi, recognizing Shion’s favorites—tekkamaki and hamachi and toro.

“These kids really respond to the complexity of _Macbeth’s_ themes, I was impressed,” Hiroki gushed, and Nezumi froze with a chopstick full of toro halfway to his lips.

“ _Macbeth_?” he asked.

“Oh, my true passion is Shakespeare,” Hiroki said, and the toro fell from Nezumi’s chopsticks back into his container.

“Is that a joke? Are you pranking me?” Nezumi asked, barely noticing his fallen sushi and looking at Shion, who no longer appeared pissed.

Shion sighed. “It’s not a prank,” he said, sounding defeated.

“A prank?” Hiroki asked.

“You win, Nezumi, I admit it, you’re right. Can you drop it now?” Shion asked.

“I feel as if I’m missing something,” Hiroki said.

“Where did you find this guy?” Nezumi asked, amazed, pointing his chopsticks at Hiroki, who blinked at him.

“Do you mean where we met? Funnily enough, it was a Shakespeare-themed mid-semester party thrown by the literary department. Shion is the only science professor that came, most of them avoid our soirees like the plague.”

“Amazing,” Nezumi whispered, staring at Hiroki. “Tell me something, do you act too?”

“I do!” Hiroki said, sounding pleased.

Nezumi slid his gaze to Shion. “He acts too.”

Shion had his elbow on the table and was rubbing his temples. “Yes, yes, I know.”

“What else?”

“What else what?” Hiroki asked, and Shion just shook his head.

“Is your family dead?”

“Nezumi,” Shion groaned.

“Excuse me?” Hiroki sounded alarmed.

“Do you have any burns?”

“Nezumi, that’s enough. I told you you’re right!”

“Burns?” Hiroki asked.

Nezumi leaned closer to Hiroki. “Tell me, are you really thirty-one, or is that just what you tell people because it’s preferable to the truth?” he whispered, and this time he received a kick in the knee. “Ah, fuck!”

Hiroki’s look of confusion deepened, but only for a second. Almost immediately, his expression cleared, and he smiled widely. “I knew it! You’re another one! Were you at a convention?”

Nezumi leaned back. He looked at Shion, who seemed just as confused as he was.

“It was the Yokohama one, right?”

“Hiroki, what are you talking about?” Shion asked.

“I know I’ve met him at an Eternal Eve convention!” Hiroki said. “I should have known immediately, of course, you’re the spitting image anyway, even have the contacts—I tried those, and they itched my eyes.”

Shion’s mouth lips were parted, and he was staring at Hiroki in a way that made it quite clear that Hiroki’s words were just as baffling to him as they were to Nezumi.

“Eternal Eve convention,” Nezumi said slowly.

“It was Yokohama, you remember,” Hiroki told him.

“Wait, Hiroki,” Shion said, his hand around Hiroki’s wrist. “Are you saying—What are you saying?”

Hiroki smiled faintly and put his hand over Shion’s, then glanced at Nezumi. “Do you want to explain, or should I?”

“You certainly should,” Nezumi said, once he found his voice.

Hiroki looked back at Shion. “You know about Eternal Eve.”

Shion nodded slowly, still gaping slightly.

“Well, my parents went to one of his shows, and they were huge fans. So as a kid, I always looked up to him. I modeled my life after him—my love of literature, Shakespeare, acting. My hair, lifts in my shoes, and, believe it or not, a touch of cosmetic surgery,” Hiroki added, laughing and tapping his nose. “Turns out there’s a lot of us that have a passion for Eternal Eve, so there’s conventions. It freaks out some people, trust me, I’ve had that experience, which is why I didn’t tell you. But Nezumi is clearly another Eve-ite.”

“Eve-ite,” Shion repeated quietly.

“That’s what we call ourselves. Members of the Evedom.”

Nezumi snorted, and Shion’s gaze slid slowly to his.

“Did you know about this?” he whispered.

“I did not know about this,” Nezumi replied, then pointed his chopsticks again at Hiroki. “Did _you_ know about this?”

Shion shook his head numbly. The poor kid. Nezumi could have laughed, but he was still absorbing the fact that idiots worshipped him to the point that they’d get nose jobs.

“Well, you clearly know about this, it can’t be an accident that you look like that,” Hiroki said, sounding disgruntled.

“I assure you it is,” Nezumi told him.

“Hiroki, I think—I need time to think about this,” Shion said slowly.

“But you’re friends with an Eve-ite! I didn’t think you’d care!”

“Please stop saying that word,” Shion said faintly.

Hiroki sighed. “Okay. I’ll let you think about it. But it’s not weird, I know it sounds weird, but it’s not. I promise. If you came to a convention, you’d see.”

Shion looked horrified at the thought, and Nezumi did laugh this time.

Hiroki didn’t seem to notice, as he was standing up. “Look, I’ve got class, so I have to run, but we’ll talk later. Call me. Okay?” 

Shion just nodded, and Hiroki leaned over him, kissed his forehead, then grabbed his Styrofoam container and left.

Nezumi turned to watch him leave, and when he was gone, turned back to Shion, who was staring at the chair Hiroki had vacated.

“That was truly entertaining. You’re right, I should have visited earlier.”

Shion looked at him, then abruptly stood up and nearly ran out of the restaurant, even leaving his sushi.

“What on earth,” Nezumi muttered, getting up and following him, leaving his own sushi as well and having to run after the man an entire block in order to catch up to his quick stride. “Hey! What’s with the dramatic exit?”

“Shut up!” Shion shouted, whirling around and stopping so abruptly that a cluster of students on the sidewalk nearly ran into him.

“Come here, crazy person,” Nezumi said, grabbing Shion’s arm and pulling him to the corner of the sidewalk, out of anyone’s way.

Shion jerked his arm free from Nezumi’s grasp. “I don’t want to hear it! All of your little comments, I don’t want them, so if you can’t stop yourself from saying them, then get away from me!”

“Why are you attacking me? What did I do?”

“Nothing!” Shion shouted. He exhaled hard, glared at the sky for a moment, then looked back at Nezumi, seeming marginally calmer. “Look, I’m not stupid, okay? I knew he looked like you when I first saw him. It wasn’t supposed to turn into anything, I just thought he’d be perfect to, you know, have sex with once to get you out of my system.”

Nezumi raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything because Shion was giving him a warning look.

Shion ran his hand through his hair. “I know—I know how that sounds, okay? I get it. But then…his apartment was full of books. And I just,” Shion exhaled deeply again. “I love books.”

“Mmm,” Nezumi hummed.

“Don’t say anything.”

“I didn’t.”

“The similarities kept adding up. It was odd, but it was just a coincidence. A lot of coincidences,” Shion murmured.

“Indeed.”

“I didn’t think too much about them because—because he liked me back, and that was new, and it felt good for once, and I…”

“He’s a lunatic, though,” Nezumi said, when Shion trailed off completely.

Shion sighed again. “Well, yes, it seems so.”

“But you liked him.”

“I really feel incredibly stupid, and I don’t need you to make me feel any more so.”

“Okay, I won’t,” Nezumi replied. He paused. “It’s a little funny though.”

Shion groaned, covering his face with his hands. “It’s really not,” he said, his voice muffled.

“Did you tell your mom?”

Shion shook his head, then lowered his hands. “I knew she’d see the similarities, and I didn’t want her to think I was pathetic.”

“Then why’d you bring me to meet the guy?” Nezumi asked, incredulous.

“I thought maybe he might make you jealous!” Shion said, throwing his hands up and abruptly walking away.

Nezumi smiled and followed him, falling into step beside him easily. “A foolproof plan. I’m very jealous.”

“You said you wouldn’t make me feel more stupid.”

“Right, I forgot, sorry.”

They walked in silence, Nezumi completely unsure where he was and letting Shion guide him, but Shion’s path seemed erratic.

“Your Majesty, can I ask where we’re going?”

“I have no idea, I’m not paying attention,” Shion said, then stopped, looked around, and started walking in the opposite direction. “Are you starving? I didn’t eat any sushi.”

“We’re going back?”

“Of course not, I can’t ever go back there,” Shion said, as if the idea was absurd. “Pizza?”

“Sure.”

The pizza place was on their same block, and Nezumi figured this was because there was a pizza place on every block. Shion held the door open, and it was filled with students, but he weaved through them quickly and somehow grabbed two stools at the counter that two students had just vacated.

“Sit on one and stretch your legs to cover the other to save it, I’ll get the pizza,” Shion told him, then immediately disappeared into the throng of students.

Nezumi did as he was told and spent the next ten minutes listening to student conversations—they all seemed extremely dramatic and full of problems—before Shion returned.

“It’ll be done soon, they’ll bring it to us,” he said, pushing Nezumi’s feet off the stool and sitting down. He rested his elbows on the counter and pressed his face into his hands.

Nezumi sat forward, leaned closer to him. “Are you okay?”

Shion nodded but didn’t unearth his face.

“I’m not going to make fun of you.” 

Shion dropped his hands. “I deserve it.”

“Maybe.”

Shion searched his face, and Nezumi let him. It’d been six months since he’d seen Shion. He felt strange on this campus, and Shion was different in some ways, but in most he was the same, and Nezumi realized only now how much he missed the man, how right it felt just to be looked at him.

“I missed you,” Shion finally said, and Nezumi clenched his jaw. He knew Shion couldn’t read his mind, but for just a second, he couldn’t help but feel terrified that the man could.

“I know,” he said, instead of saying it back, but Shion didn’t seem to care, just kept looking at Nezumi, who let himself be looked at for a few more seconds before speaking. “Did you have sex with him?” 

“Hiroki?”

“Yeah.” Nezumi didn’t know where the question had come from. Didn’t know why he’d asked it and didn’t know why he cared. He didn’t. It was curiosity more than anything, and Shion could understand that, the guy was curious about everything.

“Yes,” Shion said.

“Was he your first?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

Nezumi shrugged. “Sheer curiosity. Isn’t this what best friends talk about? Losing their virginity? It’s certainly what those two were talking about the whole time you were ordering the pizza,” Nezumi said, pointing to the two girls in the corner.

Shion looked at them, then back at Nezumi. “Then when did you lose yours?” he asked, and Nezumi laughed.

“A hundred years ago.”

“Exactly?”

“Give or take,” Nezumi said, waving a hand.

“Girl or boy? Name? Age?”

“You’re not joking, you really want to know,” Nezumi said, sitting up.

“So do you,” Shion countered.

“Mine is ancient history. It doesn’t matter.” 

“And why does mine matter?”

Nezumi squinted at the man. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”

“He was my first.”

Nezumi didn’t know what to do with this information now that he had it. He settled on nodding.

Shion tugged on the knot of his tie, loosening it, then pulled the first two buttons of his shirt free. “I know he seemed crazy. He probably is. But I didn’t know any of that before today, and he was just nice to me. He liked me.”

“You don’t have to explain. I don’t have to approve of who you date.”

“He liked me more than I liked him,” Shion said, hand stilling on the sleeve he’d been rolling up.

Nezumi tucked his hair behind his ears. It was still down around his shoulders and he wanted to put it up, but the place was so crowded that if he lifted his arms to tie it, he’d likely elbow the student hovering beside him. “You don’t have to tell me this.”

Shion didn’t reply, as their pizza was delivered on a tray. They weren’t given plates, but Shion didn’t seem to care, and immediately picked up a slice.

“It’ll be hot,” Nezumi warned, watching Shion stuff the end in his mouth.

Immediately, Shion’s eyes watered. “Ah, it’s hot!” he said, his mouth open and a hand fanning it.

“Idiot.”

Shion blinked quickly, still panting, then tried again and had the same reaction.

Nezumi watched him, amazed at his capacity not to learn from his mistakes, at his recklessness, at his lack of patience. They were not qualities that would serve him well in the future, but he didn’t even seem to notice, he didn’t seem to care, and Nezumi wished he would.

*

After pizza, Shion took Nezumi to the University of Tokyo’s museum. They stood in a room filled with dried bugs, most of which Nezumi had no desire to look at, though the butterflies were okay. He didn’t know why they needed so many of the same thing trapped in each glass case though. Just one of each butterfly would have been fine.

“Do you have class tonight?”

“I cancelled it while I was in line waiting for the pizza,” Shion said.

“You did? How?”

“I emailed my students. It says not to touch the glass.”

Nezumi took his hand from on top of the glass. There was no one else in this bug room, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out why. Most of the bugs were disgusting.

“You didn’t have to cancel it.”

“I wanted to.”

Nezumi looked for differences in the identical butterflies. He could see his own reflection in the glass hovering above the butterflies. His hair was still down. He reminded himself of Hiroki, and it was an unsettling feeling.

“You could just come home more often,” he said, watching his mouth move in the reflection.

Shion said nothing for a while. Nezumi didn’t look up from the glass. He tied his hair up in a ponytail and watched his reflection do the same.

“Maybe it’s important that I try to have a life separate from you.”

“You do. You’re a professor and a biowhatever engineer.”

“Biomedical.”

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s not what I mean, anyway. I know we do things separately, we have different jobs, we do different things. I mean that our lives feel tied together. Like I’m attached to you, or you’re attached to me. Like we’re tied by strings, and I’m constantly being pulled to you. I have to figure out how to detach.”

Nezumi took in his reflection’s confusion. Watched the confusion smooth out until it was replaced by a blank expression, and only then did he look up to see Shion watching him from in front of a glass case of beetles.

“You don’t understand,” Shion said.

Nezumi shook his head.

“I don’t either,” Shion admitted, shrugging. “It’s just what I’ve always felt since I can remember. You’re in all of my memories, I don’t remember the time before you. Maybe that’s it. It feels wrong to be without you. Like a part of me is missing. Or, rather, not that it’s wrong without you, but it feels more right to be around you. Like I’m not fully awake otherwise.”

Nezumi squinted at him. “All of your memories have your mother in them.”

“It’s not the same. She’s a relationship that’s been defined by society, by history. A mother and child—everyone knows what that means, the weight that carries, the borders of that relationship, the inevitability of growing up and leaving her at some point. But you, I don’t know what you are to me. You’re just—” Shion let his sentence end in silence, and Nezumi couldn’t finish it for him.

He didn’t know either. He didn’t know what he was to Shion, what Shion was to him.

“It doesn’t help that you’re, you know, Eternal Eve,” Shion said, smiling faintly. “There’s myth surrounding you. I’m caught up in it, and I have to learn to stop being so…enamored by you. So it’s better that I don’t come home.”

“Enamored,” Nezumi repeated slowly, looking again at the butterflies, a safer sight than Shion.

“You can mock me all you want. That’s how I feel.”

“I wasn’t mocking you,” Nezumi told the butterflies.

“I guess Hiroki was a bad idea. The opposite of distancing myself. But he really is nothing like you, despite his appearance and professional interest. He’s kind and considerate.”

“And I’m mean and inconsiderate.”

“Yeah.”

Nezumi looked up because Shion’s voice was closer to him. Shion had walked around the butterfly display, was right in front of him now.

“You’re mean and you’re inconsiderate,” Shion said.

“We’ve established that.”

Shion’s eyes slid slowly over Nezumi’s face. He had no shame, no capacity for embarrassment. Nezumi wondered for the first time if that was his own fault. He’d teased Shion constantly as a child. The kid had probably grown immune to it.

“Sometimes I try to memorize you because I know I’ll try to stay away from you for as long as possible when you leave. But it’s silly. I couldn’t forget you if I tried. There’s no reason to memorize what I can’t forget.”

Shion could be so dramatic, and maybe that was Nezumi’s fault too. He’d had Shion practice lines with him, and half his plays were Shakespeare. Of course the man was a romantic, melodramatic, wordy and ridiculous.

“I might come home with you tonight. Mom’s been bringing me clothes and some of my belongings when she visits, but I might just pack all my stuff and move out of that apartment once and for all. I’m basically officially moved in with Safu.”

“And then you’ll never have to come home again.”

“I’ll come sometimes. Mom visits, but I miss the bakery a lot.”

“And what about me?”

Shion’s eyes creased. “You’re the reason I’m not coming home,” he said slowly, as if Nezumi might somehow not have understood that.

“But if we’re tied with strings, then you’re not the only one being pulled. Right? I’m pulled to you too, isn’t that how it’d work?” Nezumi asked.

The crease between Shion’s eyebrows deepened. “You don’t miss me the way I miss you,” he finally said.

“And how would you know that?”

“It’s not the same for you, you’ve told me that over and over.”

Nezumi looked around them at all the dead bugs. He hated this room. He had no idea why anyone would willingly walk into it and look at dead bugs. He had no idea why they were still standing there, why this had to be the place where he was going to do what he couldn’t stop himself from doing any longer.

He looked back at Shion because he hated looking at the bugs and said, “I’m not just mean and inconsiderate. I’m a liar too. You know that.”

Shion’s eyes moved quickly over Nezumi’s face, and Nezumi worried the man was trying to memorize him again. Nezumi didn’t know what the point of memorizing was. Nezumi wasn’t the one going anywhere, and Shion wasn’t the one who’d be left with only memories.

But Nezumi didn’t want to think about that now. If he thought about that now, if he thought about the consequences, he’d change his mind.

Nezumi didn’t want to change his mind, so he spoke before he could. “It doesn’t matter to me because, unlike you, I’m not a hopeless romantic. But are you going to be pissed that the first time I kiss you will be in a room filled with dead bugs?”

“You’re going to kiss me?”

“It can be somewhere else. There are cicadas right next to you.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea, you’d have to ask the idiot that made this exhibit.”

“Nezumi,” Shion said.

“Why am I going to kiss you.”

Shion nodded.

Nezumi took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “I don’t know how many people I’ve kissed in my whole life. But I’ve never felt anything for any of them.”

“But I’m different,” Shion said.

Nezumi opened his lips, but only air came out.

“If you don’t say it, I’ll worry I’m just assuming,” Shion said quietly.

Nezumi nodded. “You’re different.”

Shion licked his lips. Looked around the room briefly, then back at Nezumi. “I don’t mind the bugs.”

“You sure?”

“I like them.”

Nezumi laughed, but it just came out as an exhale. He saw Shion’s gaze drop from his own eyes to his lips. He reached out first, touched Shion’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and it was wet because Shion had just licked it.

He leaned closer, but not all the way, stopped an inch or two from Shion’s face, enough so that he could still look at Shion without being cross-eyed.

“I can’t do more than kiss you,” he said, but he didn’t know if he was lying or not.

Shion didn’t say anything. He couldn’t because Nezumi’s thumb was still on his lip, so Nezumi moved his thumb, and Shion said, “I don’t believe you,” and Nezumi kissed him before either of them could say anything else.

His hand cupped Shion’s jaw. His nose touched Shion’s nose. He felt Shion part his lips immediately against his own and exhale into his mouth. He felt Shion’s hand cup his neck, he felt Shion’s thumb touch his ear. He took his lips from Shion’s, but not for long and leaned forward again, opening his lips this time, wider so when Shion’s exhaled into his mouth again, he felt Shion’s breath skate the roof of his mouth.

Shion’s breath tasted of cheese and tomato sauce and oregano. Nezumi put his hand, the one not on Shion’s jaw, on Shion’s waist, then slid his hand up along Shion’s side. He felt the cool fabric of Shion’s button down, and he could tell that Shion was wearing a shirt underneath it. Shion’s tongue was in his mouth, and Nezumi could tell Shion didn’t know how to kiss, not properly but in a way that was more exploratory than for his own pleasure. Nezumi let Shion kiss him however he wanted. Shion’s breaths were louder than they needed to be, but Nezumi didn’t mind this either. He wanted Shion to touch him in more places, but Shion seemed hesitant, and that was fine too.

It was only after Nezumi moved back from Shion that he realized he had catalogued the kiss. That he had memorized it, or tried to, but living forever meant memories became so hard to hold onto, even ones he worked hard to keep.

“Sorry,” Nezumi said, not looking at Shion but at the dead butterflies beside them, and then he stepped back.

“Sorry?” Shion asked, and Nezumi turned around, looking at the dead bugs as he left the room, hating them but hating more the voice behind him, small and uncertain in a way that was unbearable—“Nezumi?”

*

By the time Nezumi got home, the bakery was closed, but Nezumi knew Karan was still inside cleaning up and counting the register and doing the other closing tasks that Nezumi usually did with her. He stood outside the closed bakery doors and considered going in. He couldn’t see Karan through the glass and assumed she was in the kitchen, maybe wiping down counters or packing up leftovers or doing dishes or scrubbing the oven or taking inventory of what was running out.

He was still deciding whether or not he wanted to go in when the door opened, and he jumped back, pressing his hand to his chest.

“Fuck, Karan!”

“I’ve been watching you stare at these doors for a full minute,” Karan said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing! I was coming in,” Nezumi said, walking past her into the bakery. “Is the kitchen finished?”

“Yes,” Karan said.

Nezumi started putting chairs on tables, purposefully making noise and hoping that if Karan tried to talk to him, the noise would block her out. But soon he’d put up every chair, and Karan was still standing in front of the front doors, hands on her hips and watching him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he told her.

“You’re acting like you’ve gone insane.”

“I’m not doing anything, I’m cleaning,” Nezumi said, leaving the front room to get the broom from the cleaning closet, returning to see Karan in the same spot. “Have you counted the register yet?”

“Are you telling me what to do in my bakery?”

“I’m just asking,” Nezumi snapped, started to sweep.

“Nezumi, put down the broom.”

“The place is a mess.”

“It’s not. I already swept. I did the front room before the kitchen today.”

Nezumi froze. “Then why’d you let me put up all the chairs?”

“It seemed unwise to interrupt you, I thought you might throw one at me,” Karan said, her lips twitching.

Nezumi looked at the broom in his hand so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

“What happened?” Karan asked gently.

Nezumi wanted to snap the broom in two. “Everyone died without me. That’s what happened,” he said, tossing the broom away from him so he wouldn’t snap it, and it skittered pathetically across the floor.

He walked to the front, but Karan was still in front of the doors.

“Let me leave.”

“Have you ever tried to kill yourself?” she asked him, the last thing he’d expected.

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his forehead. “Are you telling me I should?”

“No. I’m asking if you have,” Karan said, and her voice was soft and understanding even though she couldn’t understand, and he couldn’t stand to take his anger out at her.

He sighed. “I’m not worried about dying. I’m worried I won’t be able to, even if put a fucking bullet in my head, and then—and then what? Then what?”

“What happened today, honey?” Karan asked again, even more softly now.

She never used to call him _honey_. They used to be the same age, or they could pretend they were, but now they couldn’t.

Nezumi shook his head. “Just let me leave, Karan.”

Karan stepped to the side, and Nezumi pulled open the door.

“You can tell me anything,” Karan said, and she was wrong of course, and even though Nezumi didn’t want to take his anger out at her, he had so much of it, and it had to go somewhere.

He looked back at her. “I kissed your son,” he told her, and he walked out the bakery, and he didn’t turn back, just like he’d walked away from Shion, leaving him there with a bunch of dead bugs and a memory of a kiss that Nezumi should never have given him in the first place.

*


	6. Chapter 6

Nezumi didn’t leave his apartment for three days. He didn’t know it was three days because he didn’t open his sun-blocking blinds or look at his phone, which was the only thing he owned with the time on it. He found out it was three days only after the three days passed, when there was knocking on his door and then Karan’s voice, “It’s been three days! Get out!”

Nezumi was reading on his bed. _Macbeth_. The same book Hiroki’s class was reading. He didn’t know if thinking about Hiroki amused him or pissed him off.

He put down _Macbeth_ and went to his door, opened it, and took in Karan.

“You let me think you killed yourself,” she shouted at him. It was clear she’d been crying, which was alarming in and of itself, but much more so paired with her words.

“What?” Nezumi asked. He felt dizzy now that he was standing and couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

“After our last conversation, and then you never came to the bakery, and Shion hasn’t heard from you, and you’re not answering your phone—what was I supposed to think?”

Nezumi blinked at her. “I’m not going to kill myself, Karan. I certainly wouldn’t do it right after I kissed Shion. Knowing how self-centered he is, he’d blame himself completely.”

“Then don’t scare me like that again!” she shouted, and then she left his doorway, heading straight to the stairwell and disappearing.

Nezumi blinked at the absence of her, then closed his door again. He went to his fridge and saw that there was nothing edible, so he went to his bedroom, dressed in jeans and a sweater, then left his apartment.

It was dark outside, and Nezumi guessed it was morning because it was a sleepy kind of dark rather than the livelier dark of Tokyo at night. When he got to the bakery, the doors were unlocked, so he let himself in and went to the kitchen, where Karan still appeared angry, as she was slamming cupboards with seemingly no other objective but to slam them.

“Is there anything leftover?” Nezumi asked sheepishly, when she noticed him standing in the doorway and abruptly stopped slamming things.

“Oh, hon,” she said, her features immediately softening, and Nezumi let her push him onto a stool and serve him a plate of scones and muffins from the day before.

She sat on a stool beside him and watched him pick apart the muffin.

“I didn’t think you’d think I was dead,” he finally said.

“I worry about you.”

“You shouldn’t,” he mumbled.

“Even though you’ve clearly been starving yourself?”

“Accidentally.”

“Do you see why I worry?”

Nezumi rubbed a hand over his face. He realized he hadn’t showered in three days and gingerly touched his bangs. They were greasy.

“Nezumi. Are you in love with Shion?”

Nezumi tore another chunk off his muffin. It was blueberry and delicious. In all his life, he’d never had food like Karan’s.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“We looked the same age when we met. Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“But now we don’t. I could be your mother. The same thing will happen with Shion.”

“Karan, I know that.”

“Don’t do this to him. Don’t do this to yourself.”

Nezumi’s eyes burned, and this embarrassed and surprised him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He blinked quickly so as not to make a memory of crying now.

“It wouldn’t have to be bad for him. I can give him a lifetime. It’ll suck for me, but I’m used to that,” he said, looking up when his eyes no longer burned and the threat was gone.

“You think you’ll be able to handle that? Watching him age? You’ll leave him, Nezumi. Isn’t it better to do that now than to do it later when he’s given you a decade of his life, or more than that? You can’t waste your time, you have so much of it, but he only has a finite amount. Once his youth is gone, it’s gone. Shouldn’t you let him go now?”

“Who says I’ll leave him?” Nezumi demanded.

“What did you do after you kissed him?” Karan asked back.

Nezumi clenched his jaw.

“You should eat more, I’ll get you pie,” Karan said, taking Nezumi’s plate.

Nezumi didn’t argue even though he didn’t want to eat any more. He let her get up and walk away from him and go to the fridge and take out a pie box.

“Have you talked to him?” he asked.

“I only asked if he’d spoken to you, and he said no, not since you visited. He didn’t mention any kiss.”

“Then how did you know I walked away from him afterward?”

“Because I know you, Nezumi,” Karan said, putting a piece of cherry pie on his plate. The same pie he’d first had from Karan’s bakery. He’d eaten the whole thing at once. He’d thrown up and Shion had been standing there, asking him what kind of adult he was.

“Did he sound okay?” Nezumi asked, when Karan put the plate in front of him.

“Why don’t you call him yourself? You two have things to talk about,” Karan said.

“Let me help you open up first.”

Karan didn’t argue, so Nezumi took that as a yes. He finished his pie and then he worked beside Karan as he had for so many days, for so many years. It felt like forever, but really it was hardly any time at all.

*

When the morning crowd let up and they’d baked enough backstock to last until the afternoon, Nezumi stepped out of the bakery. He walked only a block away, sat on the curb, and called Shion, who had not called or texted since Nezumi’s visit three days before.

Shion picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hi.”

“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” Nezumi said. The weather was overcast, and this annoyed him, though he wasn’t sure why.

“The first three rings I was deliberating. I’m not sure how I feel about my choice.”

“Do you have time to talk? Are you in class?”

“No.”

“No, you’re not in class? Or no, you don’t have time?”

“What do you want to say, Nezumi?” Shion said, sounding tired.

Nezumi drummed his fingers on the curbside. “I don’t know. I never know what to say to you. Your mom told me I should call you.”

“I didn’t tell her we kissed.”

“I did.”

“Oh. Is she mad?”

Nezumi squinted across the street. He was directly across from the ice cream shop Shion dragged him to often. Shion would try a new flavor each time, and Nezumi would always get mint chocolate chip. “At me, not at you.”

“I don’t understand why. Does she think you’re taking advantage of me?”

“No. She understands that it’s complicated. You know I won’t age, Shion. I’m not a normal person. She wants someone normal for you.”

“I don’t want someone normal.”

“I know.”

“What do you want?” Shion asked.

Nezumi pushed his fingers through his bangs, wincing when he remembered they were greasy. “I want to age with you,” he said finally. He didn’t say what he really wanted— _I want to die with you._

Shion was silent, and Nezumi tried to picture where he was. He didn’t know what his apartment with that girl looked like, so he decided Shion was in his lecture hall.

“I can work on that,” Shion said, after a minute. “Nezumi, if you gave me samples of your DNA, I could try to do something. I have unlimited resources here, and I could assemble a team even.”

“I’m not a science experiment, Shion.”

“And I’m not suggesting you are. I’m pretty smart, you know. I changed my own eye color and everything.”

Nezumi didn’t laugh. “That was an accident.”

“That was seven years ago.”

“Are you suggesting seven years is a long time?”

“I know you’re scared to hope. I know the idea of letting yourself even envision a future where you can age feels dangerous to you. I wouldn’t be suggesting that there’s a chance I could do something if there wasn’t. I wouldn’t give you false hope if I didn’t think it was worth it to try.”

Nezumi watched a couple walk out of the ice cream shop, each holding a cone. They were older, forties maybe. “What would you need?” he asked quietly, hoping maybe Shion wouldn’t hear him.

“From you? Hair or saliva will work, but blood is better. You can come to my lab whenever, and I’ll take a sample from you.”

The couple with their ice cream had sat on a bench to eat. It was a woman and a man, and the woman leaned against the man as he told her something, and then she laughed, a loud laugh that Nezumi could hear from across the street.

“Shouldn’t you be mad? I kissed you and walked away,” Nezumi said.

“I am mad. That’s irrelevant to this. No matter how mad I am at you, no matter what you do to me, I’ll always want to help you be happy. I know you’re miserable, Nezumi. You’re not very good at hiding it. In fact, I’m not sure you try to hide it. More than anything else, I don’t want you to be miserable.”

“Didn’t I tell you to be more selfish?”

“I’ve tried that. It hasn’t worked for me.”

Nezumi watched the couple eat their ice cream. They weren’t even talking to each other. They were just sitting and eating and getting older by the second and not realizing how lucky they were.

“Can I come by tomorrow? What time is good for you?”

“My classes end at noon tomorrow, come then,” Shion said.

Nezumi nodded even though he knew Shion couldn’t see him. “I’ll let you go now,” he said.

“Sure. If you have nothing else to say.”

Nezumi tried to think of something else to say. When he couldn’t, he hung up the phone.

*

The next day, Nezumi skipped rehearsal to go to Shion’s campus. He couldn’t get into Shion’s lab building because a key card was required to unlock the doors, so he stood outside and called Shion.

“I’m coming,” Shion said, when he picked up the phone, and then he hung up again before Nezumi could say anything.

In less than a minute, Shion was walking up the steps to the lab.

“You came,” he said.

“I said I would.”

“You rarely do what you say you’ll do.”

“That’s not true,” Nezumi argued, watching Shion slide his key card and then walking through the door Shion held open.

“Fine, you’re right, you’re always right,” Shion said, his strides quick so that Nezumi had to walk faster to keep up.

They walked through several hallways and up a floor, and then through more hallways until Shion led Nezumi into what looked like a doctor’s examination room.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to what looked like an examination table.

“Are you going to make me undress and put on a gown?”

“Don’t flirt with me,” Shion said shortly, turning to wash his hands at a sink.

“Is that what flirting is to you? No wonder that Hiroki won you over.”

“Why don’t you just stay quiet so this is easier on both of us?” Shion said, drying his hands and then pulling on gloves.

Nezumi hoisted himself up to sit on the examination table, the paper strip crinkling beneath him.

“Which arm?” Shion asked, sounding very cold and clinical and holding a rubber strap. In his other hand, he had a little tray filled with empty tubes that he placed beside Nezumi’s thigh.

Nezumi held out his left arm, and Shion pushed up the sleeve of his sweater, then tied the rubber strap around his upper arm.

“Have you given blood before?”

“No.”

“Really?” Shion asked, looking at him now, his voice breaking out of its previous clinical tone.

“Why is that weird?” Nezumi asked, defensive.

Shion blinked at him, seemed to collect himself again. “It’s not. Have you eaten today?”

“Yes.”

“Enough?”

“Yes.”

“What did you eat?”

“A piece of blueberry pie.”

“You should eat healthier,” Shion said, shaking his head and tying the rubber strap around Nezumi’s arm. It was tight and pinched Nezumi’s skin, and Nezumi couldn’t tell if Shion was making it tighter than it needed to be on purpose.

“Why? I’ve never been sick.”

Again, Shion looked up at him. “Even a cold?”

“No.”

“What about when you were little? A kid?”

“I don’t remember. Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. Your medical history matters. I’ll have to give you some forms to fill out, and I’m going to need you to try to remember as much as you can.” Shion had picked up a needle by now and held it up. “This is called a butterfly needle. It’s what doctors use on kids. It’s smaller, so it pinches less.”

“Do you think I can’t handle a normal adult needle?” Nezumi asked mildly.

“I don’t know what you can handle,” Shion said back, holding Nezumi’s forearm and stretching his arm out. The latex of his gloves was smooth on Nezumi’s skin. “Squeeze your hand in a fist.”

Nezumi squeezed his hand and watched the vein become more visible on the crease of his elbow. He looked again at the tray beside his thigh. There were a lot of empty tubes.

“Are you filling all of those up?”

“As many as you can handle,” Shion said, swabbing the inside of Nezumi’s elbow with something cool.

“Is that safe?”

“Do you think my plan is to kill you right now? What, as revenge for kissing me and walking away? Keep squeezing your fist, I’m going to put the needle in now.”

Nezumi squeezed his fist and blew upwards to get his bangs out of his eyes. He watched Shion slip the needle in his vein and then attach an empty tube to the end of the needle where there was another empty tubelike thing. The tube filled with his blood, and then Shion pulled it free, replaced it in the tray, and attached another.

“Do you do this a lot?” Nezumi asked.

“I’ve never done it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t draw blood, I study samples of it.”

“Then should you be doing this?”

“Probably not,” Shion said, replacing another filled tube.

“Shion.”

Shion glanced up at him. “Are you scared I’ll hurt you?”

Nezumi blinked. “Now I am, yeah, kind of.”

“I’ve seen it done a thousand times. I researched the method this morning and shadowed one of my colleagues.”

“Even still,” Nezumi muttered.

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“No.”

“Let me know if you do.”

The tubes filled slowly. The filled ones in the tray looked like they were filled with paint. Nezumi hadn’t realized blood was so thick.

“Am I a bad kisser?” Shion asked, it took Nezumi a moment to realize he was asking something unrelated to the tubes.

He looked at Shion, who was looking at the tube he was filling.

“Your Majesty—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t call me that. Forget I asked.”

“You’re not a bad kisser. That has nothing to do with it.”

Shion pulled out the filled tube, then picked up a square of cotton, placed it over the tip of the needle before pulling the needle out too. “Hold this,” he said quietly, so Nezumi held the cotton on his arm and watched Shion collect his supplies in his tray and take them to the side counter.

He pulled out labels from a drawer and started writing on them in Sharpie, words Nezumi was too far from to read.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you. I knew that before I did it. It was selfish, I was being selfish,” Nezumi said.

Shion stopped writing and started peeling the labels off the sheet, sticking one on each tube. “It wasn’t selfish. I bullied you into it. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying, Shion. I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

Shion looked at him sharply, a sticker on his thumb and a tube of blood in the other hand. “I’ve been pestering you, and you kissed me so I’d be satisfied and stop.”

“Why are you so convinced you know what I’m thinking? Has it occurred to you that you have no idea?”

“It was just another kiss to you, but to me, it was important, it mattered, and you walked away without even looking at me,” Shion said, fingers tightening around the tube of blood and his other hand scrunching up the label.

“Hey, don’t drop that blood, that’s valuable.”

“Fuck you, Nezumi,” Shion snapped.

Nezumi slid off the table, then regretted this, immediately felt dizzy, and then his eyes closed.

“Hey, sit, you’re fine,” Shion said, almost immediately and with a suddenly gentle tone. His hands were on Nezumi’s arms, and Nezumi felt himself guided into a chair. He opened his eyes, and Shion was crouching in front of him. “Don’t stand up yet. Let me get you juice.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know, just sit there.”

Nezumi didn’t argue, and Shion left the room, but he returned quicker than Nezumi had expected with a juicebox.

“How’d you get that so quickly?” Nezumi asked.

“Shh, don’t talk.” Shion ripped the straw from the side, peeled off the wrapper, stuck it in the box, and handed it to Nezumi, who took it, unable to remember if he’d ever even had a juicebox.

Nezumi downed half of it at once, then lowered it. “You were yelling at me, remember?”

“Forget it, it doesn’t matter.” Shion had returned to his labeling of the tubes.

“Listen to me. That kiss mattered more to me than it did to you,” Nezumi said, wishing his voice was firmer, but it wasn’t his fault Shion had just drained him of half his blood.

Shion made a disbelieving sound in his throat.

“I’ve been alive for one hundred twenty-five years, and I’ve been kissing people for a good portion of that, and that’s the only time a kiss has ever mattered to me,” Nezumi said.

He drank the rest of his juicebox while Shion looked at him.

“Can I get another one of these?” Nezumi asked, when he finished and Shion had still said nothing.

Shion kept staring, then nodded and left the room again. Again, he returned quickly, this time letting Nezumi unwrap his own straw and stick it in himself.

“Have you tried these? They’re good,” he told Shion, who leaned against the examination table watching him.

“I haven’t,” Shion said.

“Do you believe me?”

“About the juiceboxes being good or about our kiss being the only one that matters to you?”

Nezumi raised his eyebrows, not pausing in drinking his juice.

“I believe you.”

Nezumi finished his second juicebox. “Good.”

“You can’t just be an asshole and then say things like that and expect me not to be mad anymore.”

“I have no expectations that you won’t be mad anymore.”

Shion took off his gloves and set them on the examination table beside his hip. “Are you still dizzy?”

“No.”

“Do you have a show tonight, or do you want to get dinner?” Shion asked.

“I don’t have a show,” Nezumi said, which was a lie, but he had an understudy for a reason.

“I’ve got to put your samples away, and the area is restricted. Wait for me outside the building,” Shion said, picking up his gloves and then the tray of Nezumi’s blood-filled tubes and leaving the room without giving Nezumi a chance to agree or disagree.

Nezumi sat in the empty room for another few seconds, then stood up slowly, waiting to see if he’d pass out. When he didn’t, he left the room, realized he could not remember how to leave this building, and set off down a hallway, hoping it was the right one, wanting to get outside before Shion so Shion wouldn’t think he’d left again.

*

Shion did not take Nezumi to a restaurant, but to his apartment.

“I thought we were getting dinner,” Nezumi said, as Shion led him through a fancy lobby to an elevator.

“I can cook.”

“You live with your friend, right?”

“Safu. She’s working late at her lab tonight. She sleeps there a lot,” Shion said, as the elevator dinged and opened in front of them.

Nezumi hesitated, then walked into the elevator after Shion. He was still deciding whether or not to tell Shion that he could only stay for dinner, that nothing could happen, when the elevator opened on the seventh floor, and Shion led them out and down a carpeted hallway.

“This place is fancy,” Nezumi said, lifting his head to look at a chandelier as they walked beneath it.

“Safu got a large inheritance.”

“Are you still freeloading?”

“I am. She’s a workaholic, so I do the cleaning and cooking. Of course, I’m still getting the better end of the deal, but every time I offer her rent, she refuses. I keep trying to figure out some other way to pay her back.” Shion stopped in front of a door and took a card out of his pocket, slid it through the card slot, then pushed open the door.

The inside was fancier than the hallway, but this was not what Nezumi noticed first. The door opened into what looked to be a living room, and what Nezumi noticed first were the books, standing in stacks on the coffee table, on the end tables hugging the sofa, on the floor beside the end tables, and against the walls. And then there were the bookshelves against most of the walls, filled with books as well.

Nezumi walked in slowly, touching the cover of a book on top of a stack he passed that nearly went up to his waist. _Moby Dick._

“Holy shit.”

“We both like to read, but we can’t fit any more bookshelves in here.”

Nezumi walked to another stack and saw a book with Einstein’s face on it. _The Principle of Relativity._

“That’s Safu’s stack. There’s a system, sort of.”

“No wonder you don’t come home,” Nezumi said, going to another stack, then another, then standing in front of one of the bookshelves. The books on the top shelf were too high for him to reach, and he looked around, spotted a little step stool in the corner of the room that was also covered in a stack of books.

“I still remember the first time you took me to the library,” Shion said, and he was right beside Nezumi, reaching out to graze his fingers over the spine of a book in front of him. “I’d been there countless times with my mom, and I always liked it. But it became someplace new that day you took me. I’d never seen anyone look at books the way you did.”

“So you turned your apartment into a library to lure me here and trap me,” Nezumi joked, but Shion looked at him seriously.

“Is it working?” he asked.

Nezumi didn’t know what to say to this, but it hardly mattered, as Shion backed away from him, avoiding the stacks of books without even needing to look at the floor and nodding his chin to the side.

“I’ll give you a tour.”

Nezumi followed him, careful to avoid the stacks of books. Shion walked him quickly through the kitchen, then the bathroom, then the laundry area, then a coat closet, then a closed door he said was Safu’s room, then another closed door that he opened.

“My bedroom,” he said, and this room was like a small library in and of itself with small trails on the floor cleared of books that led to his bed and the desk in the corner and the closet.

“You understand it’s not normal that you live like this,” Nezumi said, amazed by the sheer number of books in such a compressed space.

“I don’t care about normal.” Shion stood beside Nezumi in the doorway, his shoulder against Nezumi’s.

Neither one of them took a step into Shion’s room. Nezumi finished looking at all of Shion’s books, and then he found himself looking at Shion’s bed. It was unmade, white sheets with a blue comforter kicked to the end. His pillow was on the side of the bed closer to the door.

“Are you hungry?” Shion asked from beside him.

There was a nightstand between the bed and the door, and on it was a book.

“ _To Kill a Mockingbird_ ,” Nezumi said quietly, not realizing he was reading the title out loud until he heard his own voice.

“I understand now why Atticus killed the dog. It had nothing to do with morals at all, or the greater good.”

Nezumi looked at Shion.

“It was love. He loved the people in his community, and if not all of them, then Scout. He didn’t love the dog. So the dog had to die. Because it wasn’t loved.”

Shion spoke matter-of-factly, and even though Nezumi was certain there were countless holes in this theory, he could think of none at the moment. He could barely remember the book itself, the last time he read it being when Shion was six. It was only seventeen years ago, but it felt like forever, like a lifetime. And what did time matter when Nezumi had an infinite amount, when concepts of time no longer applied? What mattered was that everything was different now.

“I’m not,” Nezumi said.

Shion blinked at him.

“I’m not hungry,” Nezumi clarified. He looked at the bed again and walked along the slim, bookless path to it, sitting on the side of it and stooping down, peeling off his left boot, then his right. He took off his sweater next and noticed the spot of dried blood on the inside of his elbow with momentary confusion before remembering.

He took off his t-shirt next. Tossed his clothes to the bottom of Shion’s bed with the bunched comforter. He left his jeans and boxers and socks and looked at Shion, who stood two steps forward from the doorway.

“You coming, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked, when Shion just kept standing there.

When Shion spoke, it was hardly above a whisper. “I can only do this if it means the same thing to you as it does to me.”

“It does,” Nezumi told him.

“Is that a lie?”

“No. It’s not.”

Shion stepped forward, then again, and then he was in front of Nezumi, their knees nearly touching. He started unbuttoning his shirt, and Nezumi watched his fingers, the careful movements of them, unrushed and methodic. When Shion unbuttoned his last button and peeled off his button down, Nezumi stood up.

Nezumi kissed Shion before he could shed his t-shirt. Shion’s lips were so soft it was overwhelming. Nezumi’s hand was along the back of Shion’s neck, fingers trickling into the soft of Shion’s hair. He tilted Shion’s head up. Kept kissing him on those soft lips, then his neck when his lips got too overwhelming, along his scar. He tucked his thumb into the collar of Shion’s t-shirt and pulled it to expose the part where his neck met his shoulder. He bit hard on the skin there and heard Shion gasp. Shion’s hands were still on his waist.

Nezumi wound his fingers into Shion’s hair and pulled, guiding Shion’s head to the other side so he could kiss the other side of Shion’s neck. He felt Shion’s exhale on his skin, too warm.

Nezumi kissed Shion’s lips again, only to bite him, to pull his lips with his teeth and listen to the quickening of Shion’s breaths. He bit and kissed and bit and kissed, knowing Shion liked the pattern because Shion’s voice slipped into his exhale, barely a fraction of a moan.

Nezumi wanted more sound from him. He slid his hands up Shion’s shirt, touched his ribs and chest and sides, pressed his hands to Shion’s back to guide him into Nezumi’s own chest, held him there and kissed his soft lips harder.

When Shion moaned again, longer and not as fragmented but still cut off early, as if Shion was self-conscious about his own sounds, Nezumi leaned back from him.

He lifted his legs onto the bed one by one, and then he was kneeling on the mattress, and then Shion was kneeling on the mattress in front of him.

Shion took off his shirt. It was not the first time Nezumi had seen the portion of Shion’s scar on his torso—they’d gone to the beach once or twice years before, and Nezumi had seen him in a bathing suit, had rubbed sunscreen over his skin.

Shion placed his hand over Nezumi’s chest, and it seemed to Nezumi that his heart fell right in the center of Shion’s palm. He wondered if Shion had known where exactly to place his hand, if that was part of his anatomical studies.

Shion’s hand slid up, and then it was cupping Nezumi’s neck. Nezumi watched Shion’s eyes look at him, drift across his skin. Shion touched Nezumi with his other hand, this one on Nezumi’s hips, tracing the line where his jeans ended and there was just skin. His fingers slipped over Nezumi’s stomach and abs and ribs and tickled, and Nezumi’s body shuddered involuntary, causing Shion’s fingers to still.

“It tickles,” Nezumi said quietly.

“You’re a hundred twenty-five years old,” Shion told him.

“I know.”

“So why do you look like this?” Shion asked, eyes on Nezumi’s torso again, nothing but confusion in his expression and voice, like it was the first time he’d ever met Nezumi, like he’d only just found out Nezumi wasn’t normal, like he couldn’t fathom it.

He looked back up when he was done his examination, his red eyes steady on Nezumi’s.

“Is it freaking you out?” Nezumi asked. “I’d understand. My body is over a hundred years older than yours.”

“Every cell in the human body regenerates. None of yours are even close to a hundred years old, except for the cells in the interior part of your eye and the cells in your tooth enamel and the cells in your brain. The rest of your cells regenerate regularly. They can’t be any more than seven years old, same as mine.”

Nezumi had never met anyone like Shion, anyone with a brain like this, crazy and genius at once, who spouted words like this. “So outside of our brains and a part of our eyes and our teeth, we’re the same age, relatively.”

“Relatively,” Shion agreed.

“I have to trust you, you’re the science nerd.” 

“That’s right. You have to trust me.”

Nezumi wanted to kiss Shion again but didn’t yet. “If it’s weird for you, if suddenly it hits you that this is weird—and it is, I don’t know how you’re still oblivious to that—but if you realize that you’re freaked out, you tell me, and we stop.”

“I’m not going to freak out. It’s not weird.”

“Shion, I need you to promise me.”

“I promise, I promise,” Shion said.

Nezumi didn’t touch him. Didn’t kiss him. He’d never had sex with anyone he cared about in his entire life. He had sex with strangers, always strangers, and he made sure they stayed that way.

Nezumi knew how to have sex with strangers. He knew how to be good at it and how to enjoy it and how to make it distract him from the rest of his life.

He didn’t know how to have sex with Shion.

Shion didn’t touch Nezumi either. He just looked at Nezumi, kept looking at him even as he shifted, as he lowered himself, as he laid on the bed on his back, still looking up at Nezumi, but his fingers were on his slacks. He was unbuttoning them and unzipping them and then tugging them just an inch down his hips.

“Can you—” he asked Nezumi, who slid his fingers under Shion’s pants’ waistband and pulled them down Shion’s thighs, down over his knees, and then off each leg. He took off Shion’s socks before touching his scar from where it started on his left foot. He traced it up with the tip of his forefinger, lifting Shion’s leg to see the other side of his shin and then thigh, to keep tracing, while Shion laughed.

The sound of his laugh squeezed Nezumi’s chest, and he didn’t know why because he’d heard it a thousand times, a million times—still not enough times, and it wouldn’t be enough, and soon he’d never hear it again, and he hated that he was thinking about that now so he made himself stop thinking about it, made himself only think about how and where to touch Shion to give him the best experience.

He knew Shion had been imagining this moment for a long time. He knew Shion would have fantasized and envisioned it and perfected it, and he knew that whatever happened now, the reality of it, could never match up to that silly, naïve, romantic mind of Shion’s.

But Nezumi wanted it to be close. As close as he could get it.

Nezumi undressed himself quickly, even his boxers, letting himself be more naked than Shion because he wanted Shion to be feel powerful, to feel in command, to feel in control. They both knew Nezumi had much more experience, but Nezumi didn’t want Shion to feel this, to feel inferior or self-conscious, to be worried or shy.

Nezumi hovered over Shion on his hands and knees, and Shion’s eyes scanned Nezumi’s body like he was not a human at all but a rare specimen who’d been discovered for the sole purpose of being examined by him. Nezumi reached up, took his ponytail out of his hair, let the locks fall over his cheeks so at least a part of him could be hidden.

Shion reached for his hair, curled his fingers around a handful of it, released it, touched two of his fingertips to Nezumi’s mouth.

Nezumi parted his lips. Exhaled hard onto Shion’s fingers.

“I should be used to how beautiful you are by now. I shouldn’t still be amazed,” Shion said quietly, as if he was only talking to himself, so Nezumi played along and said nothing back.

He’d been called beautiful before. By so many people, by so many strangers. It felt different now, and that worried him—the further tightening of his chest at the words, at Shion’s eyes on him, the slow catalogue of them.

Nezumi let him just look for another minute, then leaned down but hovered just far enough from him so Shion had to lift his head an inch off the pillow to reach his lips. When Shion tried to deepen the kiss, Nezumi leaned back. He wanted to kiss Shion softly. He wanted to barely touch him.

Shion kept trying to kiss him harder, then gave up, fell back against the pillow. His white hair fanned out around his head like a halo. He was breathing hard and they hadn’t even done anything yet, there was no reason for that, for the spent look on his face, for the overwhelming heat on his skin when Nezumi touched his cheek, his scar.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, while Nezumi traced his scar to his neck.

“Mmm?”

“I don’t want to disappoint you.”

Nezumi stopped tracing. “You won’t.”

“I don’t want you to think of me as a child.”

“I don’t, Shion.”

“I want to be the one that fucks you.”

“Do you?”

Shion nodded, his hair shifting against the pillowcase.

Nezumi had not considered Shion would want this, in all the times he’d considered having sex with Shion.

“Is that okay?” Shion asked.

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Have you been fucked before?”

Nezumi smiled faintly. “Yes.”

Shion’s disappointment was visible in the crease between his eyes. “Oh. I just assumed you were always the one who… But I guess you’ve probably done everything before.”

Nezumi touched the crease between Shion’s eyes. “Everything is new with you.”

Shion’s eyes narrowed even further, the crease deepening beneath Nezumi’s finger.

“What?” Nezumi asked.

“It’s just that it’s the opposite for me. Everything feels familiar with you.”

Nezumi traced his finger down the bridge of Shion’s nose. Just to touch Shion, any kind of touch, felt more notable than any sex Nezumi had had. It was easy to have sex with strangers. There was nothing special in it, and Nezumi had never realized he’d even wanted special, that special was possible. Sex was just feeling, just bodily pleasure, and he craved it for the distraction, for the ability to lose himself for at least a few moments.

To touch Shion, even just to trace his nose, was a privilege, was something he’d wanted and was not supposed to have. It wasn’t a distraction, and Shion wasn’t interchangeable. He wasn’t just a body, and this wasn’t just a physical exchange.

Nezumi didn’t know what to do with him. He didn’t know how to act with a person he cared about. He didn’t know what to say when it wasn’t a stranger, when it wasn’t the case anymore that it didn’t matter, or that tomorrow there’d be another stranger, and tomorrow another one.

“What’s wrong?” Shion asked.

Nezumi had stopped touching Shion. Hovered above him on his knees and hands and felt uncertain in a way he never had in his life.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he told Shion, the same words Shion had given to him.

Shion lifted his hand, tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ear. “You can’t,” he said.

“You’ve always had this wrong idea about me. You’ve always seen some version of me that doesn’t exist, you’ve always had this delusion. I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but it’s not reality.”

“What should I see?” Shion asked, his hand sliding behind Nezumi’s neck, pulling him closer, and Nezumi let himself be pulled, bent his elbows until he gave up, rested his forearms on the bed on both sides of Shion’s head.

“Someone with nothing to give you,” Nezumi said, his lips an inch from Shion’s.

“And what do you see when you look at me? Is it the real me, or is it a delusion?” Shion whispered, his breath on Nezumi’s lips.

“Probably a delusion too,” Nezumi admitted.

“What does the delusion make me look like?” Shion angled his hips up, the cloth of his briefs against Nezumi’s bare skin.

Nezumi inhaled quickly. Shion wrapped his legs around Nezumi’s waist. He was hard beneath his briefs already.

Nezumi dipped his head into Shion’s neck. Worded his reply voicelessly into the skin there so Shion couldn’t hear him. _My delusion makes you look like someone who can give me everything._

“Get on your back,” Shion whispered, legs falling from around Nezumi’s waist, so Nezumi rolled over, laid on his back and watched Shion sit up, then pull off his briefs, then straddle Nezumi’s waist as Nezumi had done to him, but he walked up on his knees until he hovered right above Nezumi’s face, his knees on either side of Nezumi’s head.

He looked down, and Nezumi glanced up at him, raised an eyebrow.

“Open your mouth,” Shion told him.

Nezumi smiled. “The kid I used to babysit knew to say please when he asked for something.”

Shion reached down, pressed his fingers to Nezumi’s lips and then opened Nezumi’s mouth himself, not that Nezumi gave much resistance.

“I’m not that kid anymore.”

_I can see that,_ Nezumi would have said, but he couldn’t because Shion’s fingers were gone and then it was his dick in Nezumi’s mouth.

Nezumi had tried not to let himself imagine fucking Shion. For a long time, the farthest he’d let his imagination go was to wonder whether Shion would be nervous, whether he’d talk too much, whether he’d be awkward, whether he’d be hesitant.

It was only when Shion started avoiding him, staying away from home for months at a time, that Nezumi’s willpower waned. Only in the past year, when he’d barely seen Shion at all, had Nezumi imagined what it’d be like to fuck Shion. And it was nothing like this—largely because it was Shion who was going to fuck Nezumi—but also because now, Shion did not touch him softly or hesitantly. He touched Nezumi as if Nezumi existed only to be touched by him, as if Nezumi belonged to Shion, and Shion was checking him, cataloging him, making sure all was in order.

Nezumi had never been touched in this way. It wasn’t so much want or desire. It wasn’t desperate, but calculated, like Shion had thought about every touch, every word, every position, and now was simply the part where he enacted this plan.

Nezumi was happy to oblige. He gave Shion a blow job until Shion let him stop, he kissed Shion back when Shion kissed him even though Nezumi’s lips were wet with his precum, and Shion laughed into Nezumi’s mouth, pushed him away, and Nezumi let himself be pushed, felt Shion’s laugh vibrating his lips even when they’d parted.

“Gross!” Shion said, still laughing and wiping his lips with the back of his hand before wiping Nezumi’s lips with his palm, and then Shion kissed him again, and then his lips left Nezumi’s, and Nezumi let them leave, let them trickle down his neck and chest, let them fall along the crease of his thighs.

“From a purely anatomical standpoint,” Shion said, lifting his mouth from Nezumi’s skin just before his lips reached Nezumi’s dick, “there are specific points of skin with the most nerve endings. The whole dick is not the same. Different parts are more sensitive than others. Different parts require more pressure, different parts require a different kind of contact.”

Nezumi was hard, and Shion hadn’t even touched him.

“Is that right?” he asked. His voice had more breath in it than he’d intended.

“It’s a fact,” Shion said, and then he ducked down, and Nezumi almost immediately gasped. He clenched Shion’s bed sheets and arched his back involuntarily, embarrassed by how quickly Shion had gotten his body to move without his own control.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed, not meaning to do that either.

Nezumi had not anticipated Shion basing his blow jobs on anatomical research, and that seemed foolish now. But even if he had anticipated such a thing, he could never have known just how effective anatomical research was, just how accurate these facts Shion had read were, just how good a student Shion was, just how capable he was of applying his academic knowledge to practical use.

It took everything Nezumi had not to come, and then after some time Shion was sitting up, wiping his mouth on his arm.

“You okay?” he asked Nezumi, who’d at some point stopped trying to stifle himself, hardly hearing his own moans because of the volume of the blood rushing through his ears.

Nezumi nodded vaguely. He felt spent and exhausted from stopping himself from climaxing. He felt like his whole body was vibrating.

“You could have come if you wanted to,” Shion said, smiling lightly and hovering over Nezumi. He pushed Nezumi’s bangs off his forehead, and only then did Nezumi realize he was sweating.

“I didn’t want to,” Nezumi managed.

Shion’s smile grew. “You’re usually a better liar.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Shion laughed loudly. He tucked Nezumi’s hair behind Nezumi’s ears and cupped his hand on Nezumi’s face in a way that made Nezumi feel like a child, and Nezumi understood then that this was the point. Shion was doing this on purpose. Making Nezumi feel unpracticed and out of his league, making Nezumi feel at his mercy when Nezumi had never felt at anyone’s mercy in his life. It amazed him that Shion was able to do this, but at the same time, he knew he had no right to be amazed. Shion was a person who thought things through, who prepared. He had prepared for this.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” Shion said, once he’d stopped laughing, and Nezumi nodded. He watched Shion stretch to his nightstand, open a drawer and pull out a bottle of lube and a condom, then come back to straddle Nezumi’s lap in a way that had Nezumi gasping again.

“Again, from a purely anatomic standpoint,” Shion said, setting the bottle of lube beside his knee and opening the condom packet, “the position of the prostate is actually simple to deduce. The angle of entry, the force and speed of thrusts, that can all be calculated very easily for optimum pleasure.”

“You’re just bullshitting now,” Nezumi said, as Shion threw the packet wrapper off the side of the bed.

Shion slid on the condom more quickly than Nezumi expected, grabbed the bottle of lube and flicked the cap open and squeezed some on his palm, then suddenly leaned down, and Nezumi thought Shion was going to kiss him, but instead Shion’s lips went right to his ear.

“Just try your hardest to last,” he whispered, and then he sat up abruptly, got off Nezumi, lifted Nezumi’s legs by his thighs so Nezumi’s ankles rested on his shoulders, and had his finger inside Nezumi before Nezumi could react.

Nezumi’s legs jerked involuntarily. Shion hadn’t hurt him, but he’d certainly surprised him, and Nezumi felt as Shion’s finger curled inside of him. He made a sound that he’d never heard himself make, something close to a shout.

“You’re a lot more audible than I imagined,” Shion commented, curling his finger in a different way that made Nezumi shrink his body into the bed, trying to get away from Shion, not because there was any pain but because it felt so incredible he didn’t think he could handle it.

“Jesus, Shion,” Nezumi hissed, as Shion’s finger left him, and then there were two, and Nezumi thrusted his hips upward against his own will.

“Do you like this?” Shion asked, as if he was really curious, and Nezumi could have hit him but he didn’t think he could relax his fist that clutched the bedsheet. He’d pulled it so hard the corner of the sheet had come undone from Shion’s mattress, and the sheet slid down, bunching by his shoulder.

“It’s always satisfying to see a theory confirmed by the actual experimentation,” Shion said, his fingers still thrusting and curling in ways Nezumi could not keep track of. Shion’s other hand was around Nezumi’s dick.

Nezumi wanted to retort, but he couldn’t form a thought, and he certainly didn’t think himself capable of forming words. He somehow unlatched his hand from Shion’s bedsheet to grab Shion’s pillow and cover his own face with it, muffling himself. 

“That’s not fair,” Shion said, both hands immediately gone from Nezumi’s body.

Nezumi groaned into the pillow.

“No pillow,” Shion said.

Nezumi pressed it harder to his face, then threw it hard away from him.

Shion was on his knees looking down at him. Nezumi’s own ankles still rested on Shion’s shoulders so his body was curled, and it curled more the closer Shion leaned to him.

“I want to see your face,” Shion said, and Nezumi had imagined, in his own fantasies, that Shion would say something to him like this, but in his head Shion had sounded naïve and childish.

Now, he sounded only commanding.

“Take it easy on me, Your Majesty,” Nezumi whispered, when Shion wiped his fingers down Nezumi’s cheek. They were wet from lube and Nezumi’s own precum.

Shion look at him carefully, then grinned just a flash of his childish grin. “No,” he said, and then he was gone again, pulling Nezumi’s legs to drag him a few inches down the mattress, and he was stronger than Nezumi could have anticipated. And then it wasn’t his fingers that were entering Nezumi, and Nezumi didn’t know how he was supposed to last even a minute with Shion fucking him like this.

He reached up blindly, his fingers grazing the top of Shion’s headboard, and he grabbed onto it.

“Don’t break that,” Shion warned him.

Nezumi’s legs had fallen off Shion’s shoulders. He dug his heels into the mattress and wanted to do more work, to push his own hips up against Shion’s, but his body seemed liquified, and he could do nothing but watch Shion fuck him and tense all his muscles in an attempt not to come before Shion gave him permission—knowing on some level, without Shion having to tell him, that he had to wait for this permission, that he wasn’t allowed to climax without Shion’s approval.

Nezumi thought he might break the headboard when Shion pulled out of him. Shion pushed his body so that Nezumi was on his side and thrust back inside of him. Nezumi let go of the headboard and clutched the loosened bedsheet again.

“You feeling okay?” Shion asked, as if he didn’t know the answer.

Nezumi said nothing, and Shion pulled out of him again, rolled him back over like Nezumi was a ragdoll, and Nezumi offered about the same amount of resistance as a ragdoll might. Shion was inside Nezumi again, but this time hovering much more closely over him so that their torsos slapped together.

“How much longer can you last?” Shion asked him, his face right above Nezumi’s.

“As long as you can.”

Shion tilted his hips in some way that made Nezumi arch his neck and shut his eyes and moan loudly enough that it made his own skin flush.

“Are you sure?” Shion asked, his lips against Nezumi’s neck, right on his pulse.

“Not much longer,” Nezumi whispered, not opening his eyes.

“A minute?” Shion asked.

Nezumi shook his head. He didn’t know what Shion was doing to him. Sex was sex and there was no way it could be so different even with knowledge of angles, even with some quick study of an anatomy textbook. He thought Shion must have drugged him. That had to be it. His body had never felt this way, it was incapable of feeling this way. He thought he’d melt out of his own skin. He thought he’d burst, explode, split open. He thought he’d pass out.

“Ten seconds?” Shion asked, lips against Nezumi’s now. Nezumi’s own lips were parted. He was gasping and he could hear his own gasps, loud and obscene, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“No,” Nezumi breathed.

“Five seconds?”

“Fuck—!”

Shion didn’t stop thrusting but changed the way he did it, his movements seeming perfectly aligned to what Nezumi needed, and Nezumi didn’t understand it, didn’t know how a textbook could tell Shion what to do in this very moment, didn’t understand how research could feel like _this._

As Nezumi came down from his climax, Shion’s fingers combed through Nezumi’s bangs, pushing them off Nezumi’s face again as he sped up his thrusts.

Nezumi looked at him, his eyelids heavy, all of his body heavy. He watched Shion’s eyelids flutter, he watched Shion gasp, he watched the muscles tense along Shion’s jaw, but then Shion’s head ducked, and Nezumi wasn’t allowed to watch when Shion’s climaxed, pushing hard into Nezumi, his nails digging into Nezumi’s hip and his teeth latching onto Nezumi’s shoulder.

Nezumi winced at the force of Shion’s bite. He stared at the ceiling while Shion finished, reaching up to slip his fingers through Shion’s hair. Shion was just as sweaty as he was, his hair wet at the roots.

The pinch of Shion’s bite remained even when Shion released him. Nezumi’s skin throbbed, but it was a pain he hardly noticed. The rest of him felt faint and unsolid still.

Shion pulled out of him. Nezumi watched him sit up, pull off the condom, hold it up and look at it for a moment before he got off the bed, threw the condom in a trash by his desk, then returned to the bed.

He laid beside Nezumi, who turned his head to look at him.

“You told me you didn’t want me to be disappointed,” Nezumi accused. He doubted he could walk yet if he tried. He doubted he could stand.

“I didn’t,” Shion told him.

“You were fucking with me. You knew there was no way I’d be disappointed,” Nezumi said.

Shion lay on his side, folding his arm as a pillow and resting his cheek on his elbow. “I theorized you wouldn’t be disappointed. But I didn’t know for sure,” he said, lips twitching, and then he was smiling, but he turned his head to hide his smile in the skin of his arm.

“You’re pretty pleased with yourself,” Nezumi said.

Shion unearthed his lips. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be?”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes, and Shion laughed then, a breath of a laugh.

Nezumi watched him laugh, then looked back at the ceiling. He was only just starting to catch his breath again. He breathed slowly and wished his pulse would stop racing.

Shion’s face appeared above his after a few slow breaths. He had propped himself up on his elbow and reached out, and Nezumi watched, cross-eyed, while Shion traced the bridge of his nose just as Nezumi had done to him.

“You caught me off guard,” Nezumi told him, when Shion stopped tracing his nose and started tracing circles over one of his cheeks. “Next time I’ll give you a better show.”

Shion’s eyes flicked to his. “Do you think _I’m_ disappointed?”

Nezumi looked at Shion’s lips to avoid his eyes.

“Are you embarrassed?” Shion asked, his voice rising in surprise, his finger leaving Nezumi’s cheek.

Nezumi turned his head to the side. Looked at the stacks of Shion’s books by his bed. He didn’t know if he was embarrassed. He didn’t know what that felt like, but maybe this was it. An itching on his skin. A wish for Shion to stop looking at him. An anger too, a heat in his body.

“I didn’t know you could be embarrassed,” Shion said wondrously, and Nezumi felt Shion’s fingers curling his hair behind his ear.

“I’m not,” Nezumi said, trying to read the titles of the books in the stack he was looking at, but he wasn’t really seeing the letters.

“You certainly shouldn’t be. Even in my wildest fantasies, which I’ve had a lot of, I never thought anything could feel that good,” Shion said, and it was his matter-of-fact tone that made Nezumi turn his head, glance at him.

“Don’t fucking coddle me.”

Shion tilted his head. “I’ve never seen you insecure. I thought I knew everything about you, but I didn’t know you could be insecure.”

“I’ll hit you.”

“I don’t know why you think I’d lie to you. I also don’t know how you can possibly not know the effect you have on me. I nearly climaxed when you were just touching my nose,” Shion said.

“You’re so full of shit.”

Shion looked at him too carefully. Nezumi wanted to turn away again but didn’t in case Shion thought that meant he was insecure, or embarrassed, or whatever, and Nezumi wasn’t.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to leave,” Nezumi said shortly, after Shion had just stared at him for a full minute.

“It’s just so easy to forget you’re even human sometimes. I like seeing that you are. But I don’t want you to feel self-conscious because you don’t have any reason to.”

“I’m not self-conscious,” Nezumi said tightly. 

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Shion,” Nezumi warned.

“This side of you is fascinating.”

Nezumi pushed Shion by the shoulder away from him and sat up. He still felt unstable but made himself get off the bed, find his boxers and tug them on, then pull on his jeans, nearly tripping and falling into a stack of Shion’s books but steadying himself just in time.

“If you have sex with me and storm out, I’ll get the wrong impression,” Shion said, sitting up in the middle of the bed.

Nezumi glared at him. “You’re being annoying.”

“I’ll stop being annoying.”

“Somehow, I doubt it.”

“Well, I wasn’t really doing anything, but I’ll try to stop annoying you, I will,” Shion said, crawling to the edge of the bed and sitting with one leg over the edge, the other pulled up against his chest, his arms wrapped around it and his chin resting on his knee.

Nezumi eyed him for a moment, then went back to the bed, sat on the edge of it beside Shion.

“If you stay, if you let me make you dinner, and then you stay the night, and then you have sex with me again, you’ll be giving me a different impression,” Shion said softly, not looking at Nezumi but the space between them.

“What impression would that be?”

“That you like me.”

“I do, Your Majesty.”

“Nezumi.”

“It would be the right impression,” Nezumi said.

Shion glanced up. “More than like.”

“We established this before we had sex, right? That it means the same thing for both of us.”

Shion shook his head. “I didn’t really believe you. I just wanted to have sex with you more than I wanted to protect myself. But now I have to protect myself again.”

Nezumi pushed his fingers through his bangs, and they slicked back, still wet with sweat. “Ideally, what would you want?”

“From you?”

Nezumi nodded.

Shion tucked his chin, pressed his lips to his knee. Nezumi knew he wasn’t thinking about what he wanted. Nezumi knew Shion knew what he wanted, and he was thinking about whether or not to tell Nezumi.

“I won’t get mad,” Nezumi offered.

Shion lifted his lips from his knee. “I want to live with you. I want you to be my boyfriend, though I don’t care if we call it that. We could call it anything. It doesn’t matter. I want to be your husband, but we don’t need to get married. But I want the security of that. Of forever.” Shion blinked. “My forever,” he amended.

Nezumi rubbed his hand over his face. “Jesus, Shion.”

“You said you wouldn’t get mad. What did you think I wanted? A fuck buddy?”

“A husband?” Nezumi countered.

“We can say partner if it’s the word that freaks you out.”

“Shion, I can’t do that.”

“Then what do you want? What can you do?” Shion demanded.

Nezumi hadn’t thought this far. He hadn’t thought at all. “We can date,” he offered, the word feeling bizarre on his lips, but it was a word that might satisfy Shion.

“And what does that mean to you?” Shion asked.

“You think I don’t know what dating is?”

“I don’t care about going out to dinner and a movie on Friday nights. It can be like it always was, except I’ll stop avoiding home because there’ll be no reason to distance myself from you anymore, and you need to actually pick up my calls and answer my texts. And obviously, there will be sexual intimacy. But outside that, it’s just the same. But I’ll sleep over at your place when I visit home, and you’ll sleep over here.”

Nezumi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your mother won’t be happy.”

“And you’ll stop fucking other people, too,” Shion added.

“I didn’t know you cared about that.”

“I didn’t. But if we’re dating, then I will. And I don’t know why you would want to sleep with other people when you can sleep with me.”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “And what about your marriage fantasy?”

“Dating leads to other things. I thought we could skip dating because we’ve known each other so long and to date won’t change much about our relationship, but if you want to take it slow, that’s fine. But eventually, Nezumi, I’m envisioning those same things I told you.”

Nezumi didn’t see the point of arguing. All of that was in the future, and he could talk Shion out of it then, he could get across to Shion later that all of this could only be temporary, an experiment, but nothing that could last.

“And your mother?”

“Does that mean you agree?” Shion asked.

Nezumi glanced around Shion’s room. A library to lure him. It was crazy, but Nezumi didn’t want to leave this room. He didn’t want to leave this bed.

“Just dating,” Nezumi warned. “Everything’s the same, but with sex, and you come home more, and I pick up your calls.”

“And you have to visit me and sleep here. And when I come home I stay at your apartment, not my mom’s,” Shion reminded.

“Your mom will not be happy. We can’t ignore that. You’re trying to ignore it.”

“I’m not trying to ignore it, I’m just trying to figure out what we want, what you want, before I start considering what my mom wants.”

Nezumi sighed. “Okay.”

“Don’t say okay like I’m forcing you into this.”

“You must see how irrational it is to be in a relationship with me, I know you can’t be blind to that.”

“To me, it feels more irrational not to be,” Shion said simply.

It was a stupid thing to say. There was nothing more irrational than this. Shion would age and Nezumi would not, and Shion was being purposefully oblivious, and Nezumi should have argued, but he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “You’re not forcing me into this.”

Shion grinned at him, then stood up. He was still naked and didn’t seem to care at all. “Let’s make dinner now, I’m starving to death.”

Nezumi waited for him to put on his briefs and then Nezumi’s own sweater, and then they went to the kitchen. As Shion cooked, he seemed unable to stop grinning, to keep himself from laughing at random moments. He was happy, ridiculously so, and didn’t try to hide it, and didn’t try to control it, as if he wasn’t worried at all that if he felt all his happiness now, it was inevitable that at some point, the feeling would run out completely.

*


	7. Chapter 7

Shion thought it’d be best that they tell Karan together. Nezumi figured it wouldn’t go well either way, so he might as well do it how Shion wanted.

They went back home the next day, after Nezumi spent the night in Shion’s apartment, in Shion’s bed. It was the first time he’d slept beside Shion, and he spent most of the night awake, thinking about this, about how he was sleeping next to Shion for the first time.

Shion also was awake. They fucked twice in the night, and talked, but mostly they just laid there awake, drowsy, unable to sleep, beside each other, occasionally shifting. It was the first time Nezumi had ever wanted a sleepless night to stretch even longer than it did.

In the train to the bakery, they sat beside each other, and Shion sat too close, leaning on him.

“If you keep this up, you’ll get beat up,” Nezumi warned him.

“Keep what up?”

“Japan isn’t as progressive as you seem to think.”

“If anyone tries to beat me up, you’ll protect me,” Shion said, leaning his head on Nezumi’s shoulder.

Nezumi jerked his shoulder until Shion lifted his head. “They’ll be beating me up too, you idiot. Sit in your own seat.”

“I didn’t think you cared what people thought,” Shion said.

“Unlike you, I don’t live in an oblivious bubble,” Nezumi replied.

“So if I hold your hand, you’ll throw a fit?” Shion asked, his lips too close to Nezumi’s ear.

“Try not to be so annoying today, Your Majesty, I barely slept, and I’m not in a good mood,” Nezumi replied, leaning his head back against his seat and closing his eyes and listening to Shion laugh beside him.

“You’re never in a good mood.”

They got off the train at their stop and walked to the bakery. A block away, Shion’s endless smiling and laughing seemed to wane. Nezumi glanced at him.

“What if we didn’t tell her?” Nezumi suggested, though he didn’t like the idea himself.

“No. It has to be real. This is real to me and it has to be real to you, and it won’t be until we tell my mom,” Shion said.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“She’s your best friend.”

“I thought you were my best friend,” Nezumi said, watching Shion’s profile.

Shion looked at him. “I know it won’t be real to you unless we tell her. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Nezumi said nothing until they walked the rest of the block and stood in front of the bakery doors. He could see Karan through them, behind the counter. “You’re right,” he admitted, but he didn’t know why this was, and he didn’t know how Shion had known. She was Shion’s mother, after all. Nezumi couldn’t fathom why her knowing should matter more to him than to Shion.

Shion was the one to open the door. Karan looked up at them and smiled. She was with a customer, so they just waved back and went to the kitchen. They’d already agreed to tell her after the bakery closed.

While they waited, they baked. It was the same as it had always been to bake with Shion, except that occasionally Shion would kiss Nezumi against the sink, or when Nezumi’s hands were covered in strawberry filling, or while Nezumi was setting a timer for the scones, or when Nezumi was midsentence trying to tell Shion not to whisk the icing too hard.

Nezumi wasn’t used to being kissed by him. He wasn’t used to being kissed at all when it wasn’t an immediate precursor to sex. It was strange but he thought he liked it, he thought he wanted Shion to kiss him more often, like when he poured chocolate chips into cookie dough batter, or when he iced flowers on a cake, or when he changed the whisk size on the mixer.

The end of the day came too quickly. Shion was useless as Nezumi cleaned the kitchen a half hour before close.

“Are you wiping the counter?” Nezumi asked, knowing Shion wasn’t as he could clearly see Shion just standing there, squeezing the dishtowel in his hands.

“She’s going to freak out,” he said.

“Yes, I told you this.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell her.”

“We don’t have to.”

Shion glared at him sharply. “Then it’ll be like we’re just fuck buddies to you.”

“Why would it be like that? And why are you mad at me? You suggested it,” Nezumi said, rinsing soap off the last dish and setting it on the dish rack before turning the faucet off.

“We’re telling her,” Shion snapped at him, then vigorously started wiping down the counter.

Nezumi sighed. Started sweeping and had just finished emptying the dust pan into the trash when Karan walked through the swinging door.

“I didn’t think I’d see you today, don’t you have class?” she asked, going straight to Shion and hugging him.

“Um, no,” Shion said. “I mean, I cancelled it.”

Karan released him. “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately, and the question was not unfounded as Shion had gone completely pale.

Nezumi had been about to take out the trash, but instead he pointed in the direction of the front room, where there were less knives. “Let’s go sit up front for a second,” he said.

“Why?” Karan asked.

“Karan, humor me,” Nezumi said, and when Karan looked at him, Nezumi knew she knew.

To his surprise, she turned around and left through the swinging door. Nezumi glanced at Shion, who stared back.

“Let’s go, it’ll be okay,” Nezumi told him, reaching out to grab his hand, and it was the first time he’d held Shion’s hand since Shion was a little kid.

He let go of it after they left the kitchen and walked down the hall to the front room. Karan was sitting at a table by the window, watching them as they walked up to her and sat at the table too.

“Well?” Karan asked, looking only at Nezumi.

Nezumi realized he was still wearing his apron and untied it, pulled it off his neck, and draped it over the back of his chair before leaning forward. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, Shion said from beside him—

“We’re dating. Me and Nezumi.” He sounded almost defiant, but Karan didn’t even look at him.

“Nezumi?” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” Nezumi finally said, feeling small under the look she gave him. It wasn’t anger so much as a look of someone betrayed.

“So it’s a good thing then?” she asked, voice too cool.

“Mom—”

“I care about him too, Karan, you know that. I have the same wants for him that you do.”

“Do you?” Karan asked. “And what are these wants that we both have?”

“Mom, stop it, why are you taking this out on him? It was my decision too!” Shion said.

“Shion, why don’t you go wait at home? Nezumi and I need to talk,” Karan said, finally looking at him.

“What? No, I’m not—”

“Go ahead,” Nezumi said.

Shion blinked at him, then quickly took on an expression that matched his mother’s anger. “I’m not a child, and I don’t have to leave while the grown-ups talk—”

“Your Majesty—”

“Don’t _Your Majesty_ me!” Shion shouted.

“He’s not going to leave,” Nezumi told Karan.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

“Do you know why I’m upset, honey?” Karan asked, looking at Shion.

Shion paused. “Because you want me to be with someone normal.”

“And why do I want that?” Karan asked, and Shion just blinked at her, so she turned to Nezumi. “Nezumi, do you know why I’m upset?”

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his face. “Yes.”

“Why am I upset?”

Nezumi exhaled hard. “He’ll age. And you think I’ll hate him for it. And you think I won’t be able to watch him get older while I don’t, and you think I’ll leave him.”

“Is that wrong for me to think?”

Nezumi wished Shion had gone home when Karan had told him to. “We’re just dating. It’s temporary, it’s just for now, can’t I have this for now?”

“And how long is for now?”

“How should I know? We just started this yesterday, Karan, I didn’t let myself think about it before, I didn’t know this would happen! The moment I start to resent him, I’ll break it off, I’m not trying to hurt him, I’m not trying to waste his time or use up all his youth, all right, but a few months? A year? Can’t you give me that?”

“A few months?” Shion asked softly.

Nezumi refused to look at him. He looked only at Karan, but that wasn’t much better.

“You’re making me the villain. If I don’t give my approval, Shion will be angry with me. If I’m the reason the two of you can’t be together, that’s my fault. You won’t take the responsibility to say no to him yourself, you’re making me do it,” Karan said, her voice hard, and she stood up before Nezumi could reply and left the table and walked right out the bakery.

Nezumi didn’t go after her. She was right. They both knew she was right.

He looked at Shion, who was silent, watching him.

“She’s right,” Nezumi said. “You can’t be angry with her. This isn’t her fault.”

“What isn’t her fault? You’re breaking up with me?”

“Shion. Don’t be dramatic.”

Shion narrowed his eyes. “Right. Let me pretend I don’t care instead, so you feel better about it.”

“You get angry that we treat you like a child, but it’s because you act like one. You refuse to think about the consequences! You think you can get whatever you want, and there won’t be any repercussions.”

“What are these consequences you’re both so concerned about? No matter what, if I can’t figure out how to change your DNA, then I’m going to get older, and you’re not. You somehow think being in a relationship will make that any more difficult? You think it won’t be difficult no matter what? Why not have this while we can? You distance yourself from people to protect yourself, but you can’t distance yourself from me, it’s already too late for that, so why can’t you just let yourself have this for as long as it will last?”

Nezumi stood up, turned away from Shion to get a break from his expression, then turned back, stared down at him to make sure he was listening. “I do think being in a relationship will make it more difficult, Shion. I think it’ll be a lot more difficult to watch you die if I’ve let myself fall in love with you first, but maybe that’s just me, maybe I’m being an idiot, you are the genius, you’re probably right, let’s get fucking married and then I can watch you die and it won’t matter to me because I’ve lost so many people I’ve loved that one more shouldn’t make a fucking difference. Right? Is that how it’ll work?”

The silence of the bakery was interrupted by voices outside it, trickling in, a couple of girls walking past and talking loudly. Nezumi glanced at them through the glass storefront for only a moment before the sound of Shion’s chair legs against the floor distracted him, and then Shion was standing up and reaching toward him, but Nezumi didn’t want to be touched, didn’t want to be comforted, not by Shion, so he stepped back.

“Remember to lock up when you leave,” he said, in case Shion was planning on running after him, and then he walked farther out of Shion’s reach, and all the way out the bakery, and into the city night.

*

When there was a knock on Nezumi’s door later that night, Nezumi almost didn’t hear it for two reasons. One, he was wasted, and two, he was being fucked by a guy he’d met at a bar after leaving the bakery.

The guy fucking him paused. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

Nezumi was underneath him, and when the guy pulled out of him, Nezumi sat up and pushed him down onto his back, then straddled him and put the guy’s dick back inside him.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said. He wanted this guy to fuck him the way Shion had. He wanted it to feel as good. He moved his hips down as low as he could, and the guy groaned beneath him.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, like that, you’re so hot,” the guy said.

Nezumi reached down, pressed his palm to the guy’s lips. “Shut up,” he warned. He’d already told the guy he wasn’t allowed to talk—his voice was deep, much deeper than Shion’s—and the guy had agreed but kept talking anyway.

With the guy muffled, there was just Nezumi’s own breaths in his ears and the sound of slapping skin, and then there was the knock—unmistakable.

“Nezumi?”

“Shit,” Nezumi hissed. He stopped moving, and the guy lifted his hands, grabbed onto Nezumi’s waist and grinded Nezumi down.

“Don’t stop now,” the guy moaned.

“Let go of me,” Nezumi said shortly. “I have to get that.”

“The door? Now?”

Nezumi grabbed the guy’s hands and pulled them off his waist, then got up off the guy’s dick and jumped off the bed. He pulled his boxers over his hard-on and tried to push his dick down as he went to his door.

“Fuck,” he cursed when his dick remained hard even by the time he got to his door.

He opened it just as Shion said his name again, “Nez—Oh, hi. Oh.”

Shion eyes slid up and down Nezumi’s body. Nezumi pulled his damp hair off his neck and tied it up quickly. Shion stared down at his dick.

“Already?” he asked, his voice too soft.

“Shion. Go home.”

“Why did you even answer the door?”

It was a good question. Nezumi stared at him and tried to think of an answer. The real answer was simple— _I wanted to see you_. It was also stupid, and there was no way Nezumi would be admitting it.

“It’s just a distraction,” Nezumi said quietly, avoiding the question. He heard that his own voice was slurred. He’d forgotten he was drunk and felt it now more than he had when he was being fucked.

“I know,” Shion said. His eyes slid behind Nezumi’s shoulder then back to Nezumi quickly enough that Nezumi knew the guy who’d been fucking him had stayed in his bedroom. “Does the distraction have a name?”

“Probably.”

“Well, probably is probably waiting for you,” Shion said, smiling wanly, and it was a terrible smile, small and not real at all, and Nezumi hated it.

“You don’t have to pretend.”

“Should I cry instead?” Shion asked.

Nezumi leaned on his doorway. “I don’t know what you should do. I don’t know what I should do.”

Shion looked sad. Nezumi wished he was better at pretending not to be.

“I don’t want you to fall in love with me if it’ll make your life worse. You were right, I was being childish. And selfish. And I’m sorry. That’s all I came here to say,” Shion said.

Nezumi leaned closer to him. He thought he might fall down. He wanted Shion to catch him. “What if I already did?” he asked.

“What if you already did what?” Shion asked back.

Nezumi closed his eyes. Didn’t realize he was letting go of the doorframe until he was falling forward, and then Shion was catching him, and Nezumi opened his eyes to see Shion’s shoulder and his neck.

“Nezumi, you’re heavy,” Shion complained.

“I’m not.”

“Will you put some weight on your own feet? I know you’re not too drunk to walk.”

Nezumi slung his arms over Shion’s neck while Shion wrapped his arm around Nezumi’s waist. “Maybe I am.”

“You’re not, you’re torturing me on purpose,” Shion muttered, and Nezumi realized Shion had led him back into his apartment. “Where should I deposit you?”

“Bedroom. You can stay with me,” Nezumi said. It was a bad idea. He knew this.

“I think you have a guest already, it might be crowded,” Shion said, leading Nezumi down the hall, and then they were at Nezumi’s bedroom, and Shion was right—he always was—there was a naked man on Nezumi’s bed.

The guy. The guy from the bar. Nezumi remembered him. “Oh, right,” he said.

“Who’s this?” the guy asked, sitting up on the bed and looking at Shion.

“I’m just the neighbor,” Shion replied, tugging Nezumi to the bed.

“You should join us, neighbor,” the guy said.

Nezumi dropped his arms from Shion’s neck and nearly fell, but Shion pushed him onto the side of the bed just in time.

“No, thanks, but I appreciate the offer,” Shion said, smiling, and Nezumi realized he _was_ good at pretending. Too good.

Nezumi sat up on the edge of the bed, reached out, grasped Shion’s arm. “Shion—”

“It’s okay. Have a good night,” Shion told him softly, freeing his wrist, and then he was gone, out of the room and then out of Nezumi’s apartment, Nezumi could hear the front door open and close.

“He had an interesting look to him,” the guy said.

Nezumi rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah,” he muttered. The bed sagged behind him, and then Nezumi felt the guy’s mouth on the back of his shoulder, biting him too gently.

Nezumi thought about telling the guy to leave. But what was the point? He was already here, and already naked, and Nezumi needed a distraction now more than ever.

He turned his head and let the guy kiss him on the lips. There was nothing special to his kisses, but that was how Nezumi liked them—knowing he wouldn’t miss them when they were gone.

*

Nezumi wished he’d been drunker the night before, as then he might not have remembered anything.

He went to the bakery even though Karan was pissed at him and he didn’t altogether want to see Shion. But he loved the bakery. The only thing more distracting than sex was baking.

He got there a few hours after it opened, and Karan had a line, but her eyes caught on his as he walked through the front room.

He waved, and she didn’t wave back, but she nodded once at him. 

Shion was in the kitchen.

“Shouldn’t you be teaching students things they don’t know?” Nezumi asked, walking in, wondering if Shion would let them both pretend they’d forgotten the night before.

“Good morning. I figured you’d be having a late morning and my mom could use help opening. I’ll head back now that you’re here.”

Nezumi sighed, holding his apron instead of putting it on. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“Are you asking me to ask you to apologize to me?” Shion asked, pausing presumably on his way to the sink to wash his hands.

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Is that your apology?”

Nezumi rubbed his eyes. “No.”

“I meant what I said last night. I don’t want to make your life more difficult. It’s fine if we’re just friends or whatever we are. Nothing has to change, okay?”

Nezumi watched Shion wash his hands, then take off his apron. Nezumi stood in front of the apron hooks still, so Shion couldn’t hang his up, but he didn’t ask Nezumi to move.

“After class today, I’ll have some time, I’ll start examining your DNA.”

“Be mad at me,” Nezumi told him.

“What would be the point of that?”

“I don’t even want to take the risk. I don’t want your mother to be mad at me. I don’t want to chance that just a lifetime with you will make the shit that comes after that lifetime worth it. That makes you mad.”

“It doesn’t make me mad. It’s who you are. You’re a survivalist. You don’t live for reckless, temporary happiness. You live to get through the day and to know you can get through the day tomorrow. I don’t fault you for that.”

“Why don’t you? Aren’t you the kind of idiot that believes it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Why aren’t you trying to convince me of that? Aren’t you stubborn? Aren’t you someone who doesn’t give up?”

Shion had his apron balled in his hands. He was squeezing the fabric, and Nezumi could see his fingers tightening. “You’re not being fair. This is hard for me. I’m trying to—I’m trying—”

He sounded helpless. It was satisfying. Nezumi wanted to be cruel to him. He was angry, so angry, but what he was angry at he didn’t even understand. How could he lash out at forever? At immortality? At the inexplicable incapability of his body to do what all bodies knew instinctively to do—to age, to rot, to die?

It was simple to be angry with Shion. He was a target that would come back again and again to be kicked, and Nezumi didn’t know why the hell Shion put up with Nezumi’s anger, why he seemed to crave it even, but he did.

“Admit you’re mad at me,” Nezumi told him again, and Shion’s frustration seemed to fade from his features, leaving nothing but an empty expression—soft if anything.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m sad for you, and for myself too, but mostly for you,” he said gently, and then he put his apron on the side of the counter. “Take care of yourself, Nezumi,” he added, like he was never going to see Nezumi again, and then he left the kitchen.

Nezumi picked up his apron. He glanced at the kitchen door, waiting for it to stop swinging in Shion’s wake, then lifted the apron to his nose and tentatively sniffed. 

It smelled only of flour and strawberries, of the kitchen itself with no trace of Shion at all, as if he’d never even touched it.

*


	8. Chapter 8

Nezumi spent the next several nights getting drunk, arriving late at the bakery, and messing up orders. The tenth day he did this, or maybe it was the eleventh, or the twelfth, or the thirteenth—Nezumi didn’t keep track of the days when he had a countless amount of them, there was no reason to count them—when he got to the bakery, there was a woman in the kitchen.

It was an old woman. Older than Karan. Certainly not older than Nezumi, though she nearly looked it. She smiled at him. “You must be Nezumi,” she said. “I’m Mio.”

Mio was wearing Shion’s apron. She didn’t look like someone who’d be named Mio. Nezumi didn’t move from the doorway. He was still hungover, but not hungover enough to consider that he might be hallucinating.

“Karan hired me. She mentioned you’d be showing up and that we could collaborate. She said you’ve been working here since the bakery opened? Though I can’t see how that’s the case, unless you worked here as a toddler!” Mio laughed, extended a flour-coated hand. “Anyway, it’s so lovely to meet you.”

Nezumi stared at her. He was used to being kind to strangers in his line of work, but he didn’t want to be used to this Mio wearing Shion’s apron.

He turned abruptly and went back to the front room, where Karan didn’t have a line and was rearranging muffins in the glass display counter.

She looked up when Nezumi walked behind the counter, not seeming surprised to see him there even though Nezumi hadn’t worked up front since Karan finished teaching him how to bake and declared him as good as her when she’d first opened.

“I hope you weren’t mean to Mio, she’s done nothing wrong.”

“I’ll start showing up on time,” Nezumi said.

“You don’t technically work here, Nezumi, you don’t have to inconvenience yourself to get here at dawn.”

“I do technically work here, I’ve been working here since the goddamn place opened, I’ve been working here before it opened. I have as much a right to be here as you do.”

“I’m not kicking you out.”

“You might as well be.”

“You can’t play nice with a coworker?” Karan asked, sighing and leaning against the counter. “I do know you manage at the theater.”

“Karan—”

“I can’t be serving people slices of apple pie that have seeds in them. I can’t be running to the back to remake batches of cupcakes you’ve burned while still taking care of things up front. And it’s not just the mistakes, it’s the quality. You’ve become a better baker than me, Nezumi, and that’s what people expect when they come here, and it hasn’t been what they’ve been getting.”

“It was just a few screw ups.”

“It wasn’t. I let a few screw ups slide. Then more than that. But I can’t anymore. I’m running a business.”

Nezumi bristled. “Our business,” he reminded.

Karan looked at him sadly. “I know, honey.”

Nezumi drummed his fingers on the counter. The front room was not empty but not full, with people only at three tables. It was a slow morning. Karan would have been fine without him, without that Mio, but that wasn’t the point. He knew that.

“This has nothing to do with Shion,” Karan said quietly, as if she’d read his mind.

“Of course it does.”

“To you, only, but not to me. My motives are only related to baking, to a desire to satisfy our customers and also to a worry that you might even burn yourself or cut yourself back there. You’ve been careless, and you’re never careless, and that’s the only thing here that’s related to Shion. It’s hard to get your heart broken. It’d be strange if it didn’t affect you.”

Nezumi scoffed. “My heart is hardly broken, don’t be so dramatic. And don’t pretend to be sympathetic now, this is what you wanted.”

“This is not what I wanted,” Karan said gently. “I want you to be happy, honey, I do.”

She rubbed his back, and Nezumi let her, distracted, thinking about her words— _I want you to be happy_ —and Shion’s words from however many days ago it’d been before he’d left— _You don’t live for reckless, temporary happiness._

Shion was right. Nezumi didn’t live to make himself happy. Or he hadn’t, not until he’d met Karan and Shion, not until he’d let them into his life, but now even that wasn’t enough.

Now, his happiness depended on more, and Nezumi realized he wanted it too. He wanted to be happy. It had seemed frivolous, a luxury, but with the taste of it Shion had given him, Nezumi understood now it was a necessity.

*

By the time Nezumi finished closing up the bakery with Mio and took a train—which had been delayed—to get to Shion’s fancy apartment building, it was late, around midnight. Nezumi couldn’t get in the apartment building—a key card was required even for access to the lobby, but luckily, just as Nezumi pulled on the door and realized it wouldn’t yield to him, a young woman walked up, key card in hand.

Nezumi stepped aside so she could swipe her card, but she just looked at him.

“I must have dropped mine on the train,” he offered, smiling at her, thinking she was sort of cute in a sharp-edged way, and he could flirt with her to get into the building if he had to.

“Is that right?” the woman asked. She knew he was lying. Her gaze was unflinching, oddly piercing as if she was seeing right through him.

Nezumi blinked, then turned up his smile, reached up and tugged free his ponytail so his hair fell over his shoulders.

“You caught me. I was trying to sneak in. The free coffee machine in the lobby makes the best lattes, I can’t help myself,” he said, leaning against the side of the building.

The woman looked him up and down slowly. Nezumi had thought she might be a student, but she seemed too put-together for that. She wasn’t ditzy, and she didn’t altogether seem to be affected by him the way Nezumi was used to affecting women, but she didn’t seem uninterested in him either. Her careful scrutiny of him was unfamiliar.

“Make a deal? Let me in, and then have a coffee with me. Although I suppose it is late, and my doctor says not to drink caffeine at night. So how about a drink?” Nezumi asked, and after seeming to examine him another moment, the woman’s lips spread into a slow smile.

“You’re good,” she said.

Nezumi smiled back as she slid her key card over the reader. The door buzzed, and she opened it, letting Nezumi walk in first.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he told her.

“Want to come to my room for that drink?” she asked him, but she didn’t even wait for his reply, instead headed to the elevator.

The elevator required a key card too, and Nezumi was willing to bet the staircase did as well. He’d have to stick with her, figure out some way to get her to Shion’s floor.

In the elevator, however, Nezumi was again lucky. She pressed the button for floor seven—Shion’s floor.

When the elevator doors closed, they were alone, and the woman turned to him, her arms crossed. In one hand, she carried a briefcase like the kind an old man might.

“What happens next?” she asked.

“Anything you want,” Nezumi replied.

The woman smiled again. “Very good. All right then, what if I want to fuck you in this elevator? What if I pull the emergency stop button? Then what?”

Nezumi stared at her. She didn’t seem deranged. She looked mostly curious, and Nezumi figured he’d play along.

“I’d ask you not to do that. It’s inconvenient to the other residents, and I prefer to fuck on beds.”

“A traditional man,” the woman said, nodding and turning to the front of the elevator.

“That’s what they call me,” Nezumi said slowly, turning to the elevator doors as well but still watching her out the corners of his eyes.

“So then we’ll go to my room. Do you make the excuse outside the door, or do you come in, spend some time with me, then say you’ve got to take a phone call outside and leave then?”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the elevator doors. The buttons above the doors said they were at floor six.

“Or, do you actually fuck me? That’s an option, I suppose, I can’t rule that out. You are promiscuous.”

“Excuse me?” Nezumi asked, staring at her as the doors opened with a ding.

She just smiled at him kindly, as if he were a child. “Come on, then. Don’t worry, it’ll all be much simpler than you think. You can stop trying to think of an excuse to break free from me, it won’t be necessary.”

“Look, I’ve got no clue what you’re—” Nezumi realized she was leading him the same way Shion had, and then she was stopping in front of Shion’s door, and then she was taking out her key card again but not swiping it.

“I am curious, though. What excuse would you have given to sneak away from me to come for Shion?” she asked, her eyes on him, her head tilted.

Nezumi examined her anew. So this was Safu. He should have guessed immediately. He wasn’t sure if he should have been surprised that she’d known who he was from a glance. Shion had no pictures of him—Nezumi didn’t let anyone take photographs, and that included Shion, despite the amount of protest he’d put up as a teenager.

“I’d have told you I was married, and that while one look at you made me want to cheat on my wife and forget my family completely, I had to be a responsible father,” Nezumi finally said, and Safu laughed.

“Flattering me, making me sympathize for you and possibly even feel more attracted to you as an unattainable married man, and also taking away my option to pressure you to stay by using my own ethics against me. That’s very good, Nezumi,” she said, then slid her key card and opened her door.

“Are you always like this?” Nezumi asked her, walking into the apartment behind her.

“Are you?” she asked back, then walked deeper into the apartment—like Shion, seeming to step around the stacks of books out of pure instinct without looking down at them. “Honey, I’m home!” she called. “And I’ve got a surprise for you!”

“I’m just about to go to bed, can you give it to me tomorrow?” Shion’s voice came from deeper in the apartment—the direction of his bedroom, Nezumi knew.

“It absolutely cannot wait!” Safu called back. She’d gone into the kitchen, and Nezumi followed her, watched her set her briefcase on the kitchen counter, kick off her flats, and fill a glass with water before turning to Nezumi. She watched him even while she drank her water, gulping it seemingly without a breath.

“What is this big surprise?” Shion’s voice came before his body down the hall, and then he stopped in the archway. He was wearing just briefs and a _Wicked_ t-shirt that Nezumi knew for a fact was _his_ t-shirt.

“That’s my t-shirt,” Nezumi said.

“You hated when your theater put on _Wicked,_ I knew you wouldn’t miss it,” Shion said, after a long pause.

“Should I go to my bedroom? Are you guys going to have sex in the kitchen? I was hoping to heat up some leftovers, is there time to do that? Although, Nezumi, you did say you were a bedroom man, so it’d make you a liar if you had sex in the kitchen. You aren’t a liar, are you? Shion never told me about that particular trait of yours, definitely not,” Safu said, setting down her empty glass.

“She’s fun, I see why you keep her around,” Nezumi told Shion.

“I keep Shion around, actually, it’s my apartment.”

“Then is it your permission I have to ask to stay the night?” Nezumi asked her.

“No, it’s mine, and you don’t have it. You should go, Nezumi,” Shion said abruptly, and then he turned to Safu. “Did you let him in? Why did you let him in?”

Safu was hidden by the door of the fridge, which she’d opened, but she reemerged a moment later with a stack of Tupperware.

“Partly, I was curious, and partly, because I knew some way or another, he’d find his way in here anyway,” she said. “But mostly because I knew you’d want to see him.”

“I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see you,” Shion said again, turning to Nezumi. “I’m going to bed. Let yourself out.” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked off down the hall, more loudly than he should have been able to with bare feet on carpet.

“Hungry?” Safu asked.

Nezumi glanced at her, wincing when Shion slammed his door. “I was going to follow him,” he offered, pointing down the hall.

“Oh, don’t do that. He’ll just yell. Best to let him calm down. If we laugh really loudly, he might get jealous thinking we’re having fun without him and come back out with his tail between his legs,” Safu said, getting plates from a cabinet, then setting them on the counter beside the Tupperware and gesturing to a stool. “Sit, sit, you’re obviously not going to leave, so there’s no use standing there like an idiot.”

Nezumi hesitated, but she was right. He sat on a stool and watched Safu pour generous portions of each Tupperware container on two plates.

“It’s curry. Do you like curry? And some potatoes. With eggs. And vegetables,” Safu said.

“It’s fine,” Nezumi said, though he wasn’t particularly hungry, but he had a feeling saying no to Safu wasn’t an option.

Safu put both plates in the microwave at once, which didn’t seem a particularly good idea, but again, Nezumi chose not to object, instead watched her spend a good minute trying to get both plates to fit at the same time.

“So,” Safu said, once the plates were in and the microwave was on, “is the purpose of this visit a grand romantic gesture, or just another fuck? Or have you not decided yet? Tea?”

“Sure,” Nezumi said. Safu had closed up the Tupperware, put them back in the fridge, then filled up a kettle and put it on the stove. The microwave beeped, and she retrieved the plates, set one in front of Nezumi and the other on the counter beside him.

“Well?” she said, after getting chopsticks for them and pausing before setting the chopsticks beside Nezumi’s plate.

“Is it your business?” he asked.

Safu set the chopsticks down. She turned away from him again to open another cupboard, this time pulling out mugs. “I should think so. I did let you in, and now I’m feeding you, fueling your next move. I’m an accomplice, so I should know the crime.”

“Who says it’s a crime?”

The kettle whistled just as Safu set the mugs beside the stove, as if she’d commanded the water to boil at that very moment and the water had no choice but to obey. This wouldn’t be a complete surprise to Nezumi. She seemed very commanding, and if the elements were going to listen to anyone, it would likely be her.

“I say it’s a crime,” Safu said, only after pouring their tea and coming around the counter to sit on the stool beside Nezumi.

“Both the romantic gesture and the quick fuck are crimes? Or just the latter?”

“Both,” Safu said with an unarguable finality, before stuffing a large amount of food in her mouth. Nezumi wasn’t sure how she’d managed to balance it all on her chopsticks at once.

“That hardly seems fair. What would you suggest I do that isn’t incriminating?”

Safu swallowed and took a swig of her tea like it was a shot. She loaded her chopsticks with another absurd amount of food before looking at him again. “Well, it’s obvious. Right?”

“Not to me.”

“Ah, I thought you were smart, Nezumi. Don’t disappoint me now, you were doing so well,” Safu said, then stuffed more food in her mouth.

Nezumi felt his jaw clench and was disturbed by how easily Safu could get under his skin. He turned to his food to distract himself, ate a few bites and realized he was starving.

“I guess the reason you don’t know the right thing to do is because that doesn’t concern you. What concerns you is what will be the most beneficial to you,” Safu said, once she’d finished another enormous mouthful.

“Right, because you’ve known me all your life,” Nezumi muttered.

“Shion has. And he’s told me enough.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s the right thing then? Spit it out, if you’re so knowledgeable,” Nezumi demanded, hand too tight around his chopsticks, so he made himself drop them on his plate.

Safu took a long sip of tea. Put her mug down slowly and seemed to examine Nezumi as if debating whether or not it was worth telling him. “You have to fuck me,” she finally said, and Nezumi was glad he hadn’t gone for another sip of tea, or he’d likely have sprayed it all over her.

“Help me out here, because I just met you—this is your sense of humor, right?”

“No. I’m serious.”

“Are you a lunatic?”

“Not at all. Look, Nezumi, even though Shion is in deep denial about how disastrous a relationship with you would be, I’m not. I could see at once, even when getting the information filtered through Shion’s bias, that you were the rational party. But your methods are awful. You’re playing with him, teasing him. Telling him you can’t have a relationship, then fucking him, then saying you’ll try to date, then telling him you can’t have a relationship again and fucking someone else—it’s a mess, surely you can see you’ve got no control over this experiment.”

“It’s not an experiment,” Nezumi said slowly, surprised by how much Safu knew, by all that Shion had told her, even what had just happened a few nights before.

Safu waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, it’s real life, I understand. But you should still use reason. You should still take the steps that will yield the most favorable results. These results being, of course, Shion’s happiness—except that your process is being tainted by your own selfishness. Hence, you being unable not to have sex with him, and being unable to say no to a relationship, then being unable to wait a good twenty-four hours after breaking up before fucking someone else when you are fully aware he lives in the same building. You see the faults now, right? The errors are clear, aren’t they?”

Nezumi gaped at her. He’d thought Shion was a nut, but this woman was a different level.

Safu pointed her chopsticks at him. “Don’t zone out. Pay attention. Think about your goal. You can’t be in a relationship with Shion because you’re immortal and he’s not, but he’s in love with you. That’s the problem. The best result is that Shion stops being in love with you but you retain your previous relationship, which was based on friendship and maybe even a familial type of love—it’s difficult to understand, your bond, I don’t think either you or Shion do, so I won’t bother trying, I haven’t been able to observe you together yet.”

Nezumi took a sip of his tea. She was crazy but fascinating. He was riveted.

“There are two optimal strategies. Do you know what they are?”

Nezumi shook his head.

“One, you make Shion fall out of love with you. That’s a good strategy, but tricky to enact. It relies on an unreliable variable—and that, of course, is Shion. He’s irrational when it comes to you. You could likely kill a person in front of him, and it’s difficult to know if his feelings would waver.”

“Have you told him all this too?” Nezumi asked.

“Not this part,” Safu said. “This is strategy two. My previously proposed plan. You fuck me. Shion will have to walk in or else he won’t believe it, but that isn’t an obstacle, we can simply be very loud, and he lives in the same apartment. It’s a convenient set-up.”

“Insane,” Nezumi whispered.

Safu leaned closer to him. She looked only serious. Nezumi could detect nothing else in her expression. Could she be serious?

“This will destroy him, obviously. But he will also understand that there is no way you could ever love him as deeply as he loves you, as this would be a serious betrayal. The biggest betrayal. Well, there’s one bigger betrayal, and from what Shion has told me, it would actually be more effective, but I also think it might be too effective to the point where your previous bond could never recover from it. So I’m the safer option. He’ll likely recover, after a few months or so, maybe a year. But after that, you should be able to be friends again, or whatever you were,” Safu concluded.

Nezumi was still absorbing the words after she’d spoken them. “What’s the bigger betrayal? The too effective one?”

“You know that one, don’t make me give it to you,” Safu said, shaking her head, and Nezumi looked at her for a second before understanding.

“I fuck Karan.”

“See, you are smart, I knew it.”

“There’s a flaw in that plan anyway. Karan would never do that. And I have no interest.”

“There’s a flaw in the other plan too. I would never have sex with you either,” Safu said, getting up off her chair, and Nezumi realized her plate was empty.

He watched her take it to the sink, then come back for his.

“You done with this? I’ll put a saran wrap over it, I’m assuming you’re sleeping over, so you can have it in the morning.”

“Why did you say all that if it was all bullshit?” Nezumi demanded.

Safu took his plate. “It wasn’t bullshit. Those are valid options. But I have no interest in having sex with you, even for the greater good of Shion no longer pining for you.”

“So the point of all that was?” Nezumi prompted.

“To show off, I suppose. I do want to make a good impression for you. How did I do?” Safu asked him, smiling lightly.

“So in the end, really, I’m just left with the same two incriminating options,” Nezumi said, getting up to take their mugs to Safu, who was loading her plate in the dishwasher.

“Yes. Looks like no matter what you do, you’ll be doing something wrong. I don’t envy you.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at Safu as she took the mugs from him and placed them on the top rack. “You know, he told me about you too. You were into him, and he rejected you.”

Safu closed the dishwasher and looked up at Nezumi. There was something pitying in her gaze. “Are you trying to lash out at me because I hurt your feelings?”

“You didn’t hurt my feelings,” Nezumi snapped.

“I’m not ashamed at being rejected, especially now that I can see what I’m up against. No wonder he’s so smitten with you, I can see I can’t compare.”

She didn’t sound sarcastic, but Nezumi had no idea how to read this woman. She was frustrating, but everything about her fascinated him.

“I’m going to bed now. If you stay to fuck him, please don’t be loud, I have an early day tomorrow and really need to get sleep,” Safu said, leaving the kitchen and going toward the hall.

“Get some earplugs,” Nezumi snapped.

“So you will be fucking him?” She paused at the doorway between the hall and the kitchen, glancing back at him.

“I thought it didn’t matter what I did. Either way, I’m fucking him over, right?”

“True. But it still matters what you do. You can break a man’s heart slowly, gradually, and torture him, or you can do it all at once like peeling off a band-aid.”

“Either way, the heart breaks.”

Safu shrugged. “I told you. You’ve come here to commit a crime. And on this occasion, you’ve made me your accomplice. So when you hurt him this time, please try to do it with less force than you usually hurt him, if possible.”

She turned then and disappeared down the hall, leaving Nezumi alone in the kitchen where he stayed for a minute.

When he left, he turned off the light. He went to Shion’s room, passing Safu’s and seeing the light on beneath her doorway. The light was off in Shion’s room. He knocked.

“Your Majesty,” he said quietly. There was no response. He tried the door handle, and it opened.

When Nezumi closed the door behind him, Shion’s room was nearly pitch black. Nezumi stood still, letting his eyes adjust until the black had shades to it that he could decipher. He went to Shion’s bed, careful to stay on the thin, book-free path, then sat on the edge of the mattress. Shion’s body lay cocooned tightly in a blanket in the very center of his bed. Nezumi reached out to it, felt Shion’s body stiffen the moment he put his hand on the blanket.

Nezumi took his hand away. Turned from Shion and rested his elbows on his knees. He bent his head, rested his face in his hands for a second before running his hand through his hair. He’d forgotten he’d left it down after trying to seduce Safu.

“Your friend Safu is a sharp girl,” he said to his knees.

There was silence, then the soft sound of shuffling behind him. The bed creaked and jostled and then sank right beside Nezumi, and Nezumi knew Shion was sitting next to him.

“What did she say to you?” Shion asked. His voice was soft. Nezumi glanced at him, saw that he sat with his legs crossed on the bed and his blanket over his head and shoulders, just his face visible.

“The truth. I think.”

“She does that.”

“She asked me if I came here to make a romantic gesture or to fuck you.”

“And?” Shion asked, after another pause.

“The first one,” Nezumi said, looking away from Shion’s face, back at his knees. He pressed his face in his hands again.

“Really?”

Nezumi nodded into his hands.

“Did she make you change your mind? You shouldn’t listen to her. I mean, mostly, she’s the smartest person I know, but she doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know you.”

Nezumi lifted his head. Peered at Shion again. “She does know me.”

“She just met you.”

“She understands all of this in a way that you refuse to. Whatever she’s told you, she’s right.”

Shion frowned. “She’s wrong.”

“She told you to get over me. Right?”

“Like I said, she’s wrong. I don’t know how you can take her side when you just met her.”

“You told me to leave just now. Remember that? Don’t you still want that?”

“I didn’t even want it when I said it to you! I knew you’d be too stubborn to listen to me,” Shion said, throwing the blanket off from his head and shoulders. “I didn’t realize you’d spend forever in the kitchen with Safu.”

“Does she love you? Safu?”

Shion shook his head. “No. Not like that. Like a friend.” 

“Then she still loves you. I could see that talking to her for twenty minutes. And your mother loves you more than anyone in the world has loved anyone. Shouldn’t it mean something that everyone who loves you is telling you I’m a bad idea?” Nezumi asked.

“You’re telling me that you’re a bad idea too. So does that mean you love me?” Shion countered.

Nezumi thought about what Safu had said. How with anything he did, he’d be breaking Shion’s heart. How the only thing he had control over was how he broke it.

Nezumi didn’t know how to break a heart. He’d never had to do it. He didn’t know what to do with Shion’s heart. He didn’t want it, he didn’t want Shion to trust him with it. How Shion had ever trusted Nezumi, even when Shion was just a kid and asking for Nezumi to babysit him, had always been a mystery to Nezumi.

“Yes, Your Majesty. You know that,” Nezumi told him.

Shion didn’t react at all, but to say, after several seconds, “Say it properly.”

Nezumi bent down, took off his boots, then shifted on the bed so he sat with his legs crossed, his knees against Shion’s knees. He took Shion’s hands in his, and Shion’s lips twitched, but he remained silent.

“This isn’t a grand romantic gesture,” Nezumi said. Shion’s hands were warm. His fingers were loose in Nezumi’s. “It’s just the truth, it’s just what you already know.”

Shion waited, and then his fingers curled, a quick pulse. “You have to say it.”

Nezumi squeezed Shion’s hands back, just as briefly, another pulse. He shook his head.

“I’ll say it first then.”

“Shion. Don’t.”

“I love you. I’m in love with you. Your turn. This is your grand romantic gesture.”

Nezumi opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I can’t.”

Shion freed his hands from Nezumi’s loose fingers. Lifted them and tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ears, both sides at the same time. “I know you can’t,” he said. “I don’t need words from you. But I need you to make up your mind. You can’t do this to me over and over.”

Nezumi nodded. Shion’s hands were still in his hair, running through the strands slowly, then resting on his chest over his shirt. Nezumi felt his heart beating into Shion’s palm.

“It’s amazing, your heart. How long it’s been beating. How it’ll beat forever.”

“Unless you cure me,” Nezumi said.

Shion’s eyes had been on his own hand over Nezumi’s chest, but they flicked back up to Nezumi’s face. “Dying isn’t a cure.”

Nezumi lifted his hands to Shion’s wrists, moved Shion’s hands from his chest. He leaned forward, uncrossing his legs, and pushed Shion onto his back on the bed. He hovered over him. “Then don’t cure me. Kill me, but do it slowly. I want to die when you die.”

Shion touched Nezumi’s lips. Moved his thumb and lifted his head from the mattress high enough to kiss Nezumi, but only briefly, only barely. “Those are even better than the words I gave you,” Shion whispered. “Say them again.”

Nezumi looked down at him. He was going to break Shion’s heart, and he was going to do it slowly, gradually, painfully, the worst way possible, and he was going to do the same to his own heart.

He leaned down closer so his lips moved against Shion’s when he spoke. “I want to die,” he whispered, and then he kissed Shion instead of saying the rest.

*


	9. Chapter 9

In the morning, after having sex twice and then recovering and contemplating having sex a third time before Shion saw his alarm clock and bolted out of bed to get ready for class, Nezumi got dressed more slowly and headed to the kitchen.

Safu was at the counter, typing vigorously on her laptop and eating off the plate Nezumi recognized as his own from the night before, as the saran wrap had been pushed to one edge of it.

“I thought you had an early morning,” Nezumi said.

“I thought you were going to keep it down so that I’d be able to get sleep in order to get up for my early morning,” Safu said back, not looking away from her laptop.

“Can I have some of this coffee?” Nezumi asked, peering into the coffee carafe.

“No, I’m taking that to work.”

“What do you do again?”

“I aid criminals in terrible crimes,” Safu replied, shutting her laptop closed with a snap. “Unless you’re talking about the job I’m paid to do?”

“I can pay you if you’d like,” Nezumi offered.

“Clever and cruel. No wonder Shion is so smitten,” Safu replied, coming around the counter to pour the coffee carafe into a thermos.

“And here I thought it was just my good looks he was after.”

“Are you guys talking about me?” Shion asked, running in with his shirt unbuttoned and tie loose around his neck. “I didn’t even have time to shower, I hate not showering in the mornings,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry, you smell good,” Nezumi said, pulling Shion toward him by his belt loops when the man came towards the coffee maker.

“Stop, let go of me, I’m late,” Shion said, hitting Nezumi’s shoulder. “There’s no coffee!”

“Safu took it all.”

“You owe me!” Safu called, already having left the kitchen with her thermos and her laptop tucked firmly into her briefcase. “We have to talk about how thin the walls are if this is going to be a thing!”

“The walls?” Shion asked, just as the front door closed after Safu.

Nezumi glanced at him, then moaned loud enough to make Shion’s jaw drop before Shion hit him again, much harder this time.

“Stop that!”

“I thought you liked when I was noisy.”

“Not when you’re just standing in the kitchen,” Shion said, looking incredulous.

“Your ears are actually red,” Nezumi noted, reaching out to pinch the top of one of his ears before Shion was walking quickly away from him.

“I’ll have to get coffee at school,” he said, drifting around the living room to gather various folders and stuff them into his backpack, which he slung over one shoulder after finishing his collecting.

He was by the door by then and stood for a moment, looking at Nezumi, his hands finding the straps of his backpack and squeezing them. His shirt was still unbuttoned, and his tie still undone, though he seemed thoroughly unaware of both these facts.

“So, I guess you’ll be going to the bakery?” he said.

Nezumi walked out the kitchen and had to dodge several stacks of books before he was in front of Shion. He didn’t look at the man’s expression, which was trying too hard not to be nervous, and instead started buttoning Shion’s shirt from bottom to top.

“Oh, I forgot that.”

“I could stay here, or hang around campus. Do you have time to meet for lunch?”

“I have classes all day and office hours in between. I’m not done till around seven, and I wanted to get working on your DNA.”

“I can meet you at your lab.”

“You’ll distract me.”

“I won’t,” Nezumi said, on the last button. He’d never dressed someone else before. He’d only ever undone other people’s buttons.

Nezumi lifted his hands to Shion’s collar next. Unfolded it and straightened out Shion’s tie. He’d never tied another man’s tie before, and he looked at the fabric in his hands for a moment, realizing that to tie a tie on another man’s neck was an entirely different process than tying his own ties—which he’d only ever done when he had to wear them for plays—and his hands weren’t sure what to do.

“You will. I’m not saying you have to leave, I’d love if you were here when I get back tonight, but I’ll probably be back late, and I might stay at the lab overnight if processing your DNA requires that time. So maybe you should go home. And I’ll call you when I have free time.”

“Okay, if you want.” Nezumi looped one end of the tie around the other. Tried to pretend he was putting it on his own neck and looped it again, through its own coil.

“Will you go to the bakery?”

Nezumi glanced up from the mess of the knot he’d made. “Karan has Mio now.”

“You’ll have to go back eventually. You’ll want to.”

“You haven’t met Mio. She’s not a fun coworker. She doesn’t even flirt with me.”

Shion smiled wanly. “I was thinking we don’t tell her.”

“Mio?”

“My mom. About us. It ruined things last time.”

“You don’t like keeping secrets from your mother,” Nezumi reminded, folding Shion’s shirt collar back down.

“Just for a little. To let us get used to dating. So we can have this as our own thing, just for now. Without complications.”

Nezumi wished there was something else for him to button or tie. He liked dressing Shion, the excuse to touch him, even if it was just his clothes.

“There are still complications, Your Majesty.” 

“But, for a little bit, my mom doesn’t have to be one of them.”

“She’ll figure it out.”

“Aren’t you a famous actor or something?” Shion asked, and Nezumi smiled as Shion looked down at his tie. “What the hell is this? Nezumi!”

“I think it looks good. Innovative. You could set a new fashion trend,” Nezumi offered, as Shion struggled to undo the knot. “Listen, I thought you wanted us to tell your mother. I thought you needed me to do so for us to be serious or official.”

“We’re serious and official to me. Are we serious and official to you?” Shion asked, his hands still on his now untied tie.

Nezumi hooked his fingers through Shion’s belt loops. Pulled him forward, just an inch. “Yes,” he said. He leaned closer to Shion, left his lips a breath from Shion’s, let Shion be the one to kiss him.

Shion kissed him too softly. “Good. That’s all that matters. Now I have to go to work. Pick up your phone when I call you, okay?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Lock up when you let yourself out,” Shion said, then lifted his lips to Nezumi’s again, kissed him briefly again, then let himself out of the apartment.

Nezumi stood alone in Shion’s library of an apartment. He looked around him at all the books and decided he’d skip rehearsal today. Even if Shion didn’t come back home today, even if he stayed all night at the lab working to make Nezumi die faster, Nezumi didn’t want to leave this place. For the first time in a long time, he felt nothing but warm, and he was scared to move, scared that to even take a step would shake the feeling from his chest, and it’d be another hundred and twenty-five years before he felt it again.

*

Nezumi woke to someone touching his face. He opened his eyes, and the someone was Shion, pushing his bangs off his forehead.

The room was dark. Nezumi blinked at him, taking a moment to remember that he was in Shion’s bedroom, on Shion’s bed.

“I told you to go home,” Shion said. He was sitting on the bed beside Nezumi.

“I can leave now,” Nezumi said, his voice scratchy and slurred from sleep.

“Don’t,” Shion said, leaning down, kissing Nezumi on the corner of his jaw. “Go back to sleep, it’s four in the morning.”

“Don’t tell me the time,” Nezumi murmured, closing his eyes again. He’d spent the day reading, taking breaks to examine the various stacks of books around the apartment, trying to figure out what stacks were Safu’s and what were Shion’s. As often happened when he read, he lost track of time—that was the whole point Nezumi read anyway. To lose track of that thing he despised.

Shion stood up from the bed.

“Where’re you going?” Nezumi asked sleepily, reaching out, but Shion had already stepped out of reach.

“Nowhere. I just got home from the lab, I want to shower. I’ll come right back, but you go back to sleep.” Shion was pulling a blanket over Nezumi now, and then he left the room.

Nezumi tried to keep his eyes open, but he must have failed, because he woke up again when Shion was already in bed beside him, smelling like soap and with his hair wet and his body burrowed into Nezumi’s.

Nezumi rolled over from his back to face him. Shion stirred, opened his eyes as Nezumi slipped his leg between Shion’s.

“I liked coming home to you in my bed,” Shion whispered.

“I guess I’ll never leave then,” Nezumi told him. He closed his eyes but knew Shion was still looking at him.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

Nezumi didn’t reply. He’d never slept with someone in his arms like this. He’d never fallen asleep beside someone he loved before Shion.

No, that wasn’t true. He used to have nightmares as a child, and he’d sleep between his parents. His sister would have nightmares too, and climb into bed with them, their full family squashed together on his parents’ bed, and they never complained. It was a memory from so long ago Nezumi hadn’t realized he’d kept it.

He curled closer to Shion. Shrank down on the bed so he could press his face into Shion’s chest, breathe the fresh fabric of his t-shirt. His heart was beating too fast, and he wondered if Shion could tell.

He felt when Shion shifted, and then Shion’s hand was in his hair, weaving through it once.

“It’s okay,” Shion murmured, his voice already sounding thick with sleep, and Nezumi wasn’t sure why Shion said this—could he tell that Nezumi suddenly understood how alone he’d felt for a century? Could he tell that Nezumi was more aware now than ever that it was only a matter of time before he was alone again?

Nezumi didn’t move his face from Shion’s chest. He closed his eyes, but he didn’t want to fall asleep, or morning would come. The next day would come, and then the day after that, and so on, and so on, and so on. That was what time did. It passed, and it took everything from Nezumi eventually.

*

The next day, Shion did not have an early class. They stayed in bed as long as they could until Nezumi’s stomach growled, and Shion pressed his ear to it, which made Nezumi laugh. 

“What are you doing, Your Majesty, come back here,” he said, pulling Shion’s arm.

“Shh, I’m listening,” Shion said, then sat up abruptly. “Your stomach just told me you’ve been neglecting it. Is that true?”

Nezumi smiled lazily. Shion crawled over his waist and reached out, touched Nezumi’s lips.

“I love seeing you smile. This kind of smile, a real one. You’ve been doing it a lot lately,” he said.

Nezumi immediately stopped smiling, and Shion took his fingers away, then left Nezumi’s lap before Nezumi could reach for him and pull him in for another bout of sex.

“Get up, you crazy sex addict. You need to eat. Did you eat at all yesterday? I worry about you when you find a good book, you always forget to resurface. I shouldn’t have to take care of you at your age,” Shion said, pulling on clothes, which Nezumi found unnecessary.

“Why are you leaving me?” Nezumi moaned, rolling onto his back and throwing his arm over his eyes. He flinched when something was thrown at his stomach and looked down to see it was Shion’s pillow.

“When you’re done being dramatic, get dressed and come to the kitchen, I’ll make you a proper meal. It’s past noon, you’ll get bed sores if you stay in here all day.”

“Who’s being dramatic now?” Nezumi asked, sitting up in bed, and his head swam as he did so. He blinked, bracing himself with his hands on the bed. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember eating anything the day before.

He heard the door open and close, and by the time he looked at it, Shion was gone from the room. Nezumi considered laying back down, but after a moment he hauled himself out of bed. His legs were sore from the different positions he and Shion had engaged in for several hours straight, and he wobbled a bit, almost knocked over a stack of books, then finally managed to get dressed in boxers and a t-shirt before leaving Shion’s room.

He stopped at the bathroom first, peed and washed his face and brushed his teeth with his finger—which felt extremely ineffective—then went to the kitchen where Shion was banging around. Safu was also present, sitting on a stool and looking at her laptop. A graph, Nezumi saw, coming closer to her.

“Hey, that’s my name,” he said, pointing to the screen, the bottom of the graph.

“It’s nice to you know you can read,” Safu replied, scrolling away from the graph before Nezumi could read any of the other words or figure out what the graph was for.

Her scrolling took her to a list of numbers and percentages and unfamiliar words that Nezumi blinked at before giving up. “What is that?”

Safu ignored him, leaning closer to the screen. “Oh. His telomeres. They don’t—”

“Shorten. Yeah, that’s got to be the key, right?” Shion asked, looking up from garlic he was smashing with the side of a knife.

“It might be,” Safu said, scrolling more.

“What is she looking at? Why was my name on it?” Nezumi asked, leaving Safu’s side and walking around the counter to lean on Shion, who was pulling the peels off his smashed garlic.

“Can you put a pot of water to boil for me?” Shion asked. 

Nezumi leaned down, pressed his lips to Shion’s neck until Shion laughed and shrank away from him.

“That tickles!”

“Stop being domestic, you’re distracting me,” Safu said flatly, not looking up from her laptop screen.

“Domestic. I like that. Are we being domestic?” Shion asked, sounding too hopeful.

Nezumi left him to look for where on earth they put their pots. There were about a hundred cabinets in the huge kitchen. “Will someone tell me what the graph is about?”

“It’s your DNA analysis report. I drafted it up yesterday to get Safu’s opinion.”

“I thought she did head stuff?”

“Psychoanalysis. But believe it or not, the scientific community considers the head a part of the body, so they made me go to med school too,” Safu said from behind her laptop.

“She’s quite rude, your friend is,” Nezumi said to Shion, offering him the pot he’d finally found.

“Water, on the stove, boil it,” Shion reminded, and Nezumi went to the sink. “Safu’s going to help me, she’s a great asset.”

“I’m just looking at it, and only for five minutes. I don’t have time to help you experiment on your lab rat.”

Nezumi watched the pot fill with water. “You said—something is the key? So you know how to—” _Fix me?_ Nezumi had been about to say, but that wasn’t quite right. _Kill me._ That was what he wanted. That was the goal.

“Do you know what chromosomes are?” Shion asked.

Nezumi turned off the faucet. “I’m not an idiot,” he said, though he wasn’t altogether sure. Something to do with DNA, he knew that.

“They’re the double-stranded molecules of DNA that are inside the nucleus of each cell,” Shion explained.

Nezumi put the pot on the stove. “Didn’t I just say I knew what they were?” He pressed the button on the stove that applied to his burner and waited for a flame before realizing the stove was a flat surface. It didn’t have a flame. A circle beneath the pot began to light up into a deepening red.

“No, you said you weren’t an idiot, which I knew already. Simply put, chromosomes are basically strands of DNA, and telomeres are at the ends of chromosomes keeping the strands together. They’re like the plastic things at the end of shoelaces. Pull off the plastic thing, and your shoelace will fray, the threads will unravel, right?”

Nezumi watched the pot of water. It annoyed him that Shion was using some shoelace analogy like he was a child, but at the same time he knew he needed the analogy if he wanted any hope of understanding, which annoyed him more.

“Well, it’s the same thing with chromosomes and telomeres. Each time a cell duplicates, the telomere gets shorter. When it gets too short, the chromosomes start to unravel like the threads of a shoelace without their plastic thing. And with the chromosomes unraveled, the cell that holds those chromosomes can no longer divide. So it becomes a dead cell, and many dead cells are what cause a multitude of illnesses and also just aging in general.”

“But your telomeres aren’t getting shorter. Your cells are dividing, and nothing is happening to their length,” Safu said, sounding awe-struck behind her laptop.

“So we just have to figure out a way to make your telomeres act like normal telomeres,” Shion said, while Nezumi kept watching the still water in the pot.

“ _You_ have to figure it out. I’m not helping, remember?” Safu said.

“That’s what I meant,” Shion said easily.

Tiny bubbles had started collecting on the bottom of the pot. Nezumi held his hand over the pot, felt the warmth of the rising steam.

“Is it possible?” he asked the pot.

“No,” Safu said.

“I don’t know yet,” Shion said more loudly.

Nezumi looked away from the pot. Both Shion and Safu were looking at him.

“I’ve known that girl for less than forty-eight hours, and I trust her more than you,” he told Shion.

“Then you are an idiot,” Shion said, and then he turned around and went back to his garlic. “Stop staring at the water or it won’t boil. Get some bell peppers from the fridge and wash them.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to cook for me?” Nezumi grumbled, going to the fridge.

“I changed my mind.”

“Is this all correct?” Safu asked, as Nezumi dug around drawers for bell peppers.

“Yes. I ran everything twice, and I plan to run it all again tonight. What part?” Shion asked back.

Nezumi found two red bell peppers and got them both, shut the fridge, went to the sink.

“The enzyme chart.”

“I was surprised too.”

“At what?” Nezumi asked, annoyed that no one was explaining anything to him.

Shion took the peppers from Nezumi when he finished washing them. “Your telomerase activity. Telomerase is an enzyme that, when activated, adds telomeres to the ends of cells. Basically, telomerase keeps the telomeres long, and thus keeps the cells from dying. It’s both good and bad—people need the enzyme to be active to keep their good cells dividing, but the enzyme has also been found to be super active in tumor cells in cancer patients, which means it duplicates cancer cells at much faster rates, causing cancer to spread.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Nezumi asked.

“Your telomerase stats are normal,” Safu said.

“So?”

“We figured that’d be where the discrepancy lay, since your telomeres are long. It would make sense that your enzyme activity would be divergent. But it looks normal.”

“Which is…good or bad?” Nezumi asked, while Shion cut each bell pepper in half, then pulled out the part with the seeds.

He shrugged. “It was a place I thought we could start. It would have made it easy, if your telomerase activity was atypical, because then I’d have a goal—I could just try to make it typical. But it’s already normal. So it makes it harder to figure out how to shorten your telomeres.”

“And that’s what you have to do. Shorten my telomeres.”

“It’s a possible avenue to experiment with, yes,” Shion said slowly.

Nezumi leaned against the sink. Watched Shion cut the peppers in strips, then in cubes. “I’m not here because of this,” he said, after Shion finished one pepper and moved onto the next.

Shion glanced up from his peppers. His red eyes were so familiar Nezumi hardly remembered when they’d been brown. “What does that mean?”

“If you can’t figure this out, if you can’t cure me, if you know this and you’re just doing all this shit because you think that’s the only reason I’m here, then you’re the idiot. If you can’t do it, that’s fine. I still want to—I still want to be here, and to do whatever this is with you. But you should tell me if there’s no hope, or I’ll get hopeful.”

“You should be hopeful. There is hope,” Shion said back. “And don’t say ‘whatever this is’ as if you don’t know what this is. We’re dating. That’s what this is. You’re my boyfriend. You can say it, no one is going to make fun of you for it.”

“I might make fun of you for it. A one-hundred-twenty-five-year-old man with a boyfriend? It sounds a bit foolish,” Safu said, shutting her laptop and sliding off her stool.

“Hey, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about,” Shion said, his grin twitching when he glanced at Nezumi.

Nezumi crossed his arms, annoyed at Shion’s grin. “Are you two having fun?”

“Shion’s been depressed about you for almost as long as I’ve known him. Let him have his fun now,” Safu said, stuffing her laptop in her briefcase.

“Safu!” Shion said warningly.

“Yell at me later, I’ve got to get to work. Bye, boys. Keep it down so we don’t get noise complaints from the neighbors,” Safu said, pulling on her jacket.

She left then, and when she was out the front door, Nezumi turned to Shion, who was chopping peppers with a renewed focus.

“Depressed, huh?” Nezumi asked.

“Check the water, it’s probably boiling,” Shion said.

“But you’re happy now,” Nezumi said, and Shion stopped chopping, looked up at him.

He looked wary, and Nezumi realized he missed the grin, as annoying as it had been.

“You’re happy now because we’re dating. And you’re my boyfriend. Correct?” Nezumi pressed, and Shion’s smile was a slow and growing thing.

“The water,” he finally said softly, so Nezumi went to check it, mostly glad for an excuse to turn away from Shion, to hide the lifting corners of his own lips. He was happy too, and it wasn’t a familiar feeling, not the way it consumed him, not the way it threatened to stay only long enough to ruin him.

*

While Shion was at work, Nezumi went home, but not to go to the bakery and not to go to rehearsal or his show.

He went home to fill a duffel bag in his apartment with clothes, grabbed his toothbrush too, then left after less than five minutes. He was back at Shion’s hardly more than two hours after he’d left. He spent the day again reading. Karan called him once, and he ignored the call. He slept on and off between books, and then Shion was home, and Nezumi didn’t know what time it was and didn’t want to know.

He wanted to live his entire life like this. Without time. Without anything and anyone but Shion and the books he read to fill up the space when Shion wasn’t here.

“You’re still here?” Shion asked, stopping at the doorway of his bedroom, his tie already pulled loose and the top buttons of his shirt undone.

Nezumi shut _Persuasion._ “I told you I’d never leave,” he said, getting off the bed.

Shion frowned. “Didn’t you have a show tonight? Did you skip it? Or did you go and come back?” he asked, looking at his watch, so the first thing Nezumi did when he was in front of Shion was grab his wrist, undo the band of his watch, and throw it across the room so that it landed behind a stack of books. “Hey!”

Nezumi pulled Shion fully into the room. Closed the door behind him so that he could press Shion up against it. He slid his knee between Shion’s legs and held Shion’s wrists up against the door by the sides of Shion’s head. He leaned forward, pressed his mouth to Shion’s neck right below his jaw.

He felt the shake of Shion’s throat when Shion laughed.

“What’s with the urgency?” he asked, still laughing. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

Nezumi bit his skin. Tightened his hands around Shion’s wrists. Pushed his knee farther up into Shion’s crotch until Shion gasped, and then Nezumi pushed his entire body against Shion’s, grinded against him. He was already hard, and he wanted Shion to be hard too.

“Nezumi,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi took his hands from Shion’s wrists. With one hand, he untucked Shion’s button down from his pants and slid his palm up Shion’s stomach, more of the fabric of Shion’s shirt bunching at his wrist the higher Nezumi’s hand went. With his other hand, he held the back of Shion’s neck, pressed Shion’s mouth harder against his.

He rolled his hips faster against Shion’s. He was wet inside his boxers, sticky from his precum and didn’t care. He could feel Shion’s hard-on pressing against his own dick and thigh, the cloth between them both maddening and adding to the pleasure.

Shion’s hands were in Nezumi’s hair. He pulled too sharply, and Nezumi didn’t mind. The door behind Shion creaked against its hinges with every thrust, a sound that mixed with Shion’s fragmented catches of voice.

Nezumi bit Shion’s lip, pulled it, then released it and dropped his lips down to Shion’s neck again. He sucked Shion’s skin hard. Wanted to leave more scars.

“Let’s—Let’s take off our clothes—Nezumi—Nezumi—oh god—”

Nezumi thought the door might break, he was pressing Shion so hard up against it. Shion’s leg wrapped around his waist, then dropped again. His fingers grasped weakly at Nezumi’s t-shirt hem.

“Wait—Let’s slow down—The door—Our clothes—It’ll be a mess,” Shion breathed, but he wasn’t slowing down, he was pushing his own groin against Nezumi’s with just as much want.

Nezumi wanted his skin to be against Shion’s, he wanted Shion to be inside him, doing whatever angles he did that made Nezumi’s toes curl so forcefully he thought his bones would break. But there was no time. They both knew that.

Shion came first, his arms having found their way up the back of Nezumi’s t-shirt, his fingers digging hard into Nezumi’s skin, and Nezumi wondered if Shion was trying to leave scars too—ones that would be just inches away from his burn scar, ones that he wouldn’t mind so much, ones that wouldn’t be painful to receive, ones that he’d want to remember getting.

“Shit,” Shion cursed, when he finished, but he didn’t stop rocking against Nezumi, and Nezumi came next, his knees nearly giving out, his body tense and exhausted by this point from the effort of pinning Shion to the door.

Nezumi felt the stickiness of his own cum against his skin, pressed there by his boxers. He rested his forehead on Shion’s shoulder and breathed.

“What the hell was that?” Shion asked, his lips against the side of Nezumi’s head, words rustling Nezumi’s hair.

“It’s so fucking sticky,” Nezumi muttered.

“This is your fault. I blame you entirely.”

Nezumi leaned away from him, and Shion slid down the door onto the floor, his knees in front of his chest. He leaned his head back against the door and looked up at Nezumi. His cheeks were flushed, the luminescent hair at his hairline sticking to his face with sweat.

“You’re like something out of a dream,” he finally said. He was still breathing hard.

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his own face. “Don’t say stupid shit like that.”

Shion closed his eyes. “I can’t help it,” he breathed.

Nezumi looked at him another moment. “You should move. I need to get these clothes off and shower.”

“I’ll come with you. Give me a second for my legs to start working again.”

Nezumi waited, and then Shion reached up, and Nezumi reached down, grabbed his outstretched hand, pulled Shion up. They left Shion’s room, and in the bathroom undressed, Shion laughing at the mess in his briefs while Nezumi turned on the shower to let the water warm.

In the shower, Nezumi let Shion shampoo his hair, then condition it, combing his fingers through carefully to get out the knots. When Nezumi got the knots out of his own hair, he was rough, pulled until it hurt, but Shion was careful, his fingers slow, his expression concentrated. Shower water plastered his white hair to his face. Water dripped from his white eyelashes every time he blinked. He was talking about something, about Nezumi’s DNA, about telomeres, about what he’d been working on at the lab before he came home, but Nezumi wasn’t really listening. He was too distracted watching the tracks of water slip down Shion’s face, curve over his cheeks, fall off at his chin.

_You’re like something out of a dream_ , Nezumi thought, but he didn’t say it. He wasn’t young and naïve the way Shion was. He knew better than to speak the words he knew would only make things harder in a matter of time.

*

Nezumi started going back for his shows at the theater, though afterwards instead of crossing the street to return to his own apartment, he went back to the train station and to Shion’s apartment. He did not return to the bakery and started baking instead in Safu and Shion’s kitchen. Shion had given him a spare key card so he could let himself in and out of their apartment building, so Nezumi was able to go grocery shopping for supplies. He made pies and cakes and buns and tarts, and every time Karan called him, as she’d started doing once a day, Nezumi did not pick up the phone.

This happened for ten days—ten days of sleeping at Shion’s apartment, of basically having moved in, and of avoiding Karan—before Shion confronted him.

It was a Friday, and Shion came home at four in the afternoon, which was rare for him. He spent most afternoons in the lab examining Nezumi’s DNA.

Safu was already home, and Nezumi was showing her how to make chocolate croissants.

“Nezumi!” Shion shouted, the moment the front door opened, his voice entering the kitchen before he did.

“He sounds mad,” Safu said, pausing in cutting the croissant dough in triangles.

“What’s wrong, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked, licking melted chocolate off his thumb.

Shion stood in the kitchen, indeed looking livid. “You made my mother cry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was talking to her today on the phone, and she asked about you, if I’d seen you, and I had to lie because that’s what we’re doing now, so I said I haven’t seen you, and then she started crying and said she was worried you’d disappeared and that it was her fault.”

Nezumi lowered his thumb from his lips.

“She apologized to me, Nezumi. She apologized that she’d chased you out of our lives. And I had to just lie to her and pretend like you weren’t right here!” 

“Why didn’t you just tell her that I was staying with you?” Nezumi asked slowly.

“Because—Because it’s been incredible, and we’re both happy, and these have been the best days of my life, and I didn’t want—I’m worried the same thing will happen as before, she’ll be mad at you and convince you that this is a bad idea, and you’ll—”

“Hey, calm down.” Nezumi stepped forward, put his hands on Shion’s shoulders, leaned down to look him in the eye because the guy sounded like he was unraveling. “Listen, we’ll tell her. I knew I couldn’t lie to your mother, she’d see right through me, she always has, that’s why I’ve been avoiding my apartment and the bakery. But if this is going to make you both upset, that’s not worth it. We’ll tell her, and she’ll be mad, and she’ll hate me for this for a little while, but I’m prepared for that, and I’m not going to leave you.”

“Yes, you will,” Shion insisted.

“I won’t.”

“You will! You’re eager to get under anyone’s skin, you pick fights with me for fun, but with my mom it’s like you’re someone else, you hate upsetting her, you’ll do anything she wants!” Shion snapped, jerking his shoulders away from Nezumi’s hands.

Nezumi sighed. “This is different. Shion, you understand that, right? You can’t need me to keep reassuring you because I won’t do that.”

Shion pointed at him. “Don’t pretend I’m asking to be reassured for no reason! You said this last time, you said you were serious last time, and immediately, the moment my mom freaked out, you ended things between us.”

“Wait, I’m catching up here,” Safu said, startling Nezumi, who’d forgotten she was in the kitchen. “Were you and Shion’s mom in a relationship?”

“No,” Nezumi said shortly.

“She’d have been, what, around Shion’s age when they met you, right?” Safu asked.

“It’s not like that,” Shion said.

“What’s it like then?” Safu asked.

“I know it would be very scintillating if I fucked every generation of Shion’s family, but since that’s not what happened, can we put that to bed for once?” Nezumi said to Safu before turning to Shion. “I’m going to the bakery tonight before my show to tell Karan we’re dating. It’s better if you don’t come, just let me talk to her. I know she’ll be mad, I know she’ll be upset, I know it won’t be fun. But no matter how she reacts, by tonight I’ll be back right here.”

“And I’m supposed to trust that. Despite last time.”

“I don’t care if you trust me. Either way, I’ll come back.”

“How romantic,” Safu gushed.

Nezumi glared at her, and she smiled back before returning to her cutting of the dough.

“Why can’t you just lie to her? You lie to everyone, you love to lie, you’re the best actor I’ve ever seen! Just go home and let her know you haven’t disappeared and lie to her about why you haven’t been around and stop avoiding the bakery and let us just keep this a secret for a little while longer,” Shion insisted, his voice strained.

“I can’t lie to her. I don’t want to, and I wouldn’t be able to.”

“You’re choosing her over me.”

“Do you hear the ridiculous shit you say or am I the only one with that privilege?” Nezumi demanded, and after a moment, Shion’s hard look dissolved.

“Do what you want, Nezumi,” he said, then he left the kitchen, headed to the front door.

“Where are you going?”

“The lab,” Shion called back, and then he was out the door, slamming it behind him.

“You two are certainly both dramatic, you deserve each other,” Safu said. “What next? I finished my triangles.”

Nezumi glanced down at her dough. Her triangles were perfectly even. Karan would have been proud.

*

An hour before Nezumi had to be in his dressing room to get his make-up done for _Phantom of the Opera_ , he opened the door to the bakery for the first time in ten days. Even though he’d been baking in Shion and Safu’s kitchen, the smells were not nearly as potent as in Karan’s bakery. He breathed in and immediately felt as if he’d come home after too long.

The bakery was closed, but Nezumi knew Karan would still be here cleaning up. She wasn’t in the front room, so Nezumi headed back to the kitchen, where her back was to him as she was reaching up to put bowls in a cupboard.

Nezumi waited for her to close the cupboard before speaking. “Karan.”

She whipped around. Stood where she was and just looked at him. “I thought you left.”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

When Karan still didn’t step forward, Nezumi went to her. In front of her, he waited, but she didn’t touch him, so he reached out, wrapped his arms around her, tentative, worried she wouldn’t hug him back, but then she did, her body folding into his.

She smelled of her bakery. She smelled like home. Nezumi closed his eyes and felt her hands closing around the fabric of his t-shirt.

“You didn’t pick up my calls. You were never home. I stood outside your apartment so many times, for hours, waiting.” Karan pulled away from him but kept her hands on Nezumi’s arms.

“I’m sorry I made you worry.”

“You couldn’t let me know you were okay?”

“I know I should have.” Nezumi ran a hand through his bangs. “I knew you’d—I knew you’d be mad, and I don’t want you to be. I don’t want to hurt you or disappoint you. I hope you know that.”

Karan’s hands dropped from his arms. “You were with Shion the whole time,” she finally said.

Nezumi nodded.

“He’s been lying to me. You told him to lie to me,” Karan said.

Nezumi didn’t refute this with the truth. He’d let Karan blame him instead of Shion. “I wanted a chance to try this with him.”

Karan’s gaze was emotionless, and it made Nezumi’s stomach tighten. “And?”

Nezumi looked away from her. “I need more time with him.”

Karan was silent for long enough that Nezumi looked back at her to make sure she was still standing in front of him. When he looked at her, she said, “Until you end this with him, I don’t want you back in this bakery.”

“Karan—”

“You’re my family, and I love you, but I’m serious about how much I hate that you’re doing this, Nezumi. You won’t understand that I’m serious if I let everything go back to what it was, if I pretend this is okay with me.”

“This is my bakery too,” Nezumi reminded.

“It’s my name on the business ownership papers. It’s my name on the lease of this property. I can call the police and get a restraining order if I have to,” Karan said.

Nezumi stared at her. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“I would do anything to protect Shion.”

“He doesn’t need protection from me.”

“He does, and you know it!” Karan shouted, the sound of her voice livid in a way Nezumi had never heard it. “It will crush him if you leave him today, imagine what it will do to him if you let him love you for a few months, for a year, for longer? You’ll break his heart and everything that he is. He is everything that is good in this world, and I know that’s why you love him, I understand, you’ve gone through terrible things and he is something good and yes, you deserve something good, but you will ruin him. You will ruin him.” Karan was crying. Nezumi didn’t step forward to comfort her. He didn’t touch her.

_You will ruin him._

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, after watching her cry for as long as he could stand. And then he left her there, crying in the kitchen of the bakery that was his home when he hadn’t had a home in a hundred years.

He didn’t go to the theater. He went to the train and then was at Shion’s apartment, and Shion wasn’t there and neither was Safu, and this was better.

He undressed, got in the shower, put the water on as hot as it would go and stood in the spray, feeling the temperature change from freezing to scorching. He didn’t move when it burned him. He waited for his skin to peel, for it to char and twist until it was raw and scarred. It was a pain he knew how to deal with. It was a hurt he could handle because he’d handled it before.

*

The bathroom door opened after some amount of time, Nezumi didn’t know, he didn’t give a fuck about time.

The shower curtain opened, and Nezumi pushed his hair out of his eyes to see Shion.

“You’re here,” Shion said.

“I told you I’d come back.”

Shion reached into the spray and took Nezumi’s hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Your fingers are pruned.” Shion let go of Nezumi’s hand and turned off the shower. “The water is cold even though it’s turned to hot. How long have you been in here?”

Nezumi collected his hair over his shoulder, squeezed it to ring it out. “Want to join me?”

Shion’s hand was on his chin next, pulling up Nezumi’s head and making Nezumi look at him. “What did she say?”

Nezumi jerked his face free from Shion’s hold. “What you’d expect.” He stepped out of the shower, grabbed his towel from the sink where he’d left it, rubbed it quickly over himself before tying it around his waist. The exhaustion from the shower hit him immediately. His legs felt weak. He pushed past Shion out of the bathroom, and steam gushed out after him.

Shion followed him as well, into Shion’s bedroom, where Nezumi untied the towel from his waist and bent down to wrap it around his hair.

“Talk to me. Don’t close off.”

“You know what she said. She said the same stuff as the first time we told her we were dating.”

“The first time, it really upset you.”

“I’m still upset. Can’t you tell?” Nezumi asked, pulling on his boxers and opening one of the drawers Shion had emptied for him to search for a t-shirt.

He felt Shion’s hand on his back and flinched. Shion’s hand fell from his skin.

“I can tell. You are upset. You’re more upset than you were last time, but you’re still here. You’re not telling me we need to break up.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Nezumi asked tiredly, grabbing a shirt and tugging it on and slamming shut the drawer. He left the room again, now used to traveling the book-free paths to maneuver Shion’s room and the rest of the apartment, and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Shion stood in the bathroom doorway. “I just want you to talk to me. I know my mom means a lot to you. I know this is hard for you.”

Nezumi spit in the sink. “It should be harder for you. She’s your mom.”

“It is hard for me. But for some reason, it’s harder for you. Just talk to me.”

Nezumi rinsed his mouth, rubbed his face towel over his lips, stood in front of the toilet and look at Shion. “Want to let me pee?”

“Go ahead, Safu isn’t home.”

Nezumi shook his head but didn’t have the energy to argue. He peed and flushed, washed his hands quickly and pushed Shion out the doorway again so he could return to Shion’s room, where he got into bed and rolled on his side.

He felt the bed sink behind him. Felt Shion’s hand on his back over his t-shirt. “She was your first friend in a century. Your life was the same for a hundred years, and then she moved next door and everything changed because she invited you into our lives.”

Nezumi curled his legs to his chest. Closed his eyes. “I don’t need you to recap my own life.”

“I’m not going to let you shut me out. I’m not going to stop until you talk to me.”

Nezumi opened his eyes. He didn’t roll over. He stared at Shion’s wall. “I can’t go back to the bakery.”

Shion’s hand left his back. “Why not?”

“She said so.”

“My mom said you couldn’t come to the bakery because we’re dating? But it’s yours too. You’re the baker.”

Nezumi rolled onto his back. Shion sat on his knees looking down at him. He looked outraged and incredulous. “I made a promise to your mother years ago that I would not get involved with you. I broke that promise. This is my fault. Everything she said to me today is true, and you don’t need to know it all, but you need to know she’s right. I’m not going to leave you, but I’m going to respect your mother’s wishes, and you need to do the same. And if you hold a grudge against her, or try to fight with her on my behalf, then I will leave you because I’m not going to come between you two. Understood?”

“If I want to be angry with her, I have every right!” Shion said. “That’s your bakery too, she can’t kick you out!”

Nezumi sat up. “You’re not listening to me. Your mom can do whatever she wants to me. She can punish me however she wants. And you don’t get a say in that, and you don’t get to have opinions about that. But since it’s impossible to stop you from having opinions, then you can’t share those opinions with your mother, or even to me, because I won’t listen to you tell me Karan is a horrible person when we both know that’s bullshit.”

“You don’t deserve to be punished,” Shion said, his voice hard.

“You don’t get to decide what I deserve,” Nezumi said back, his voice even harder. For as angry as Shion could be, Nezumi could be angrier. He had so many more years of practice with rage. Shion knew nothing at all about it compared to him.

Shion tried to keep his expression hard, Nezumi could tell, but then it crumpled, and he leaned back from Nezumi. “Will you listen to her?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“You’ll miss the bakery.”

“I can bake here.”

“You’ll miss Mom.”

“She’ll come around eventually.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

Nezumi lay back down. He reached out, tugged Shion’s button down. “Are you going to lie down or just sit there looking at me?”

“I have to brush my teeth and change.”

“Just for right now.”

Shion shifted, then lay half on top of Nezumi, his torso over Nezumi’s and his arms across Nezumi’s chest and his chin resting on his folded hands. He looked down at Nezumi, who looked up at him.

“Promise you won’t be mad at her,” Nezumi said, reaching up, trickling his fingers through Shion’s hair.

“I can’t promise that. I am mad at her.”

“I won’t let you fight because of me.”

“But I don’t get a say? You guys are fighting because of me! That’s a double standard.”

“I don’t care. Shion, I’m serious, I won’t be in a relationship with you if it means coming between you and Karan.”

Shion pouted, and it was cute really, but then he was ducking his head, burying his face in Nezumi’s chest.

Nezumi’s hand was still in Shion’s hair. He wove his fingers in and out of the strands. They used to be brown, the same shade as Karan’s. Shion used to look just like his mother. “Even if you have to pretend to get along, do that. Soon you’ll forgive her for real. Will you do that for me, Your Majesty?”

Shion shook his head, his face still in Nezumi’s chest.

“Don’t say no. I don’t want to break up with you.”

Shion peeked up. “You don’t have to break up with me.”

“I do if I’m coming between you and Karan. But I really don’t want to. I kind of like you, you know.”

Shion smiled, then leaned up, kissed Nezumi quickly.

“Do we have a deal?” Nezumi asked.

Shion sighed, an exaggerated sigh. “I’ll just be pretending to be nice to her. But really, I’m mad.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“And if she doesn’t get over it soon, then we’ll have to reevaluate the terms of this deal.”

“If you insist.”

“It’s annoying that you can just turn all suddenly sweet to manipulate me because you know it will catch me off guard,” Shion said, pushing up from the bed to sit up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m always sweet.”

Shion was unbuttoning his shirt, shaking his head. “It’s a good tactic, I’ll give you that.”

“How good?” Nezumi asked, sitting up again to help Shion finish his unbuttoning, as he was going much too slowly.

Shion dropped his hands, so Nezumi finished the buttons, then pulled Shion’s shirt off, kissing his shoulders as he did so.

Soon, Nezumi had Shion completely undressed and was pulling off his own clothes when Shion said, “I’ll pretend to my mother that I’m not pissed at her. But you shouldn’t pretend to me that you’re not sad. You don’t have to do that. I know it’s hard for you, but I really want you to try not to do that. Not to pretend with me, not to lie and hide yourself from me. Will you try to let me see you sometimes?”

Nezumi finished pulling off his boxers. Shion was lying on his back, propped up by his elbows.

“I’ll try,” Nezumi finally said, balling his boxers in his hands before throwing them to the side of the bed.

“And you’re not saying that just so I will shut up and fuck you?” Shion asked.

Nezumi lay beside him. Shion rolled over on top of him. He was heavy in a good way. His skin was warm.

“I don’t want to pretend with you. It’s…habit.”

Shion slid his hand down Nezumi’s torso, lower between their bodies. “I’ll help you break your habits.”

Nezumi arched his back at Shion’s touch. He wasn’t used to it yet, being touched by Shion, the way Shion knew how to touch him. It was nothing to the way Nezumi had ever been touched. The man was nothing that Nezumi had ever known.

Shion’s lips were at his ear. “Start now. Telling me how you feel. Don’t lie,” he whispered.

“I feel—” Nezumi’s gasp cut his own voice off.

“What was that?” Shion whispered.

Nezumi couldn’t find his voice to reply. He stopped thinking. He let Shion take care of him. It was a new feeling and he knew better than to get used to it, but for now, for now he would let himself have something good in his life.

*


	10. Chapter 10

Nezumi sat on the edge of an examination table in a room in Shion’s lab while Safu drew his blood. Ten minutes before, he’d been alone in this room with Shion, who’d given him a rim job until he climaxed into a small container, which was now sealed and labeled.

While Safu took his blood, Shion stood with a pair of tweezers and pulled out ten locks of Nezumi’s hair.

Even though Shion insisted DNA was the same no matter what part of the body it came from, he wanted as much samples he could get without draining Nezumi of too much blood, nor tweezing out too much of his hair.

“Is it protocol to give rim jobs for semen samples?” Nezumi asked, while Shion closed the Ziploc bag that held his hair strands.

“This is information I don’t need to be aware of,” Safu said, pulling the needle out of Nezumi’s arm. “Hold this cotton to your vein.”

Nezumi held the cotton down.

“Yes, that’s protocol,” Shion said. “You’re my fifth rim job today.”

Nezumi laughed.

“Speaking of the inappropriate nature of your sex lives,” Safu said, taking the tray of tubes filled with Nezumi’s blood to the counter, “did you see the email from the neighbor who filed the noise complaint?”

“I’m baking her a cake,” Nezumi said.

“Cake does not make up from the trauma of hearing your moans all night,” Safu retorted.

“My cake does.”

“He does make good cake,” Shion said, putting a band-aid over the cotton on Nezumi’s arm.

“Just don’t get me evicted, please,” Safu said. “I’m being nice and helping you with this mortality quest, the least you could do is not get me kicked out of my home.”

“You are the best, Safu, have I told you that today?” Shion said.

“Did you need more semen samples?” Nezumi asked, catching Shion’s belt loop when he finished applying the band-aid and stepped away from the examination table. He pulled Shion back to him so that the man stood between Nezumi’s knees and wrapped his legs around Shion’s waist.

“No,” Shion said, smiling, and Nezumi kissed him.

“Are you sure?”

“Hey, lover boys, I’ve got to get back to work, so you have to label these samples on your own.”

Nezumi lifted his lips briefly from Shion’s. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks, Safu, see you later!” Shion said, before Nezumi kissed him again.

He stopped kissing Shion to grab at the knot on his tie and pull it loose. “Come get on this examination table with me.”

“No. You get off and then bend over it,” Shion said.

Nezumi grinned, hopping off the examination table and turning around, resting his forearms on the table and glancing behind his shoulder to watch Shion undo his belt. “I just gave blood. You should take it easy on me.”

“Is that really what you want?” Shion asked, wrapping his belt around his hand, then tugging down the waistband of Nezumi’s jeans.

Nezumi bit the inside of his cheek. Sometimes he couldn’t stand it, how much he liked this man. Sometimes he thought it would kill him, but then he remembered he’d never die.

*

Time passed, as it always did. Nezumi tried his best not to keep track of it, but Shion sabotaged his attempts frequently, like on a Sunday afternoon when Nezumi, Shion, and Safu were all in the living room watching some cooking show Safu liked, the only TV she seemed to watch.

Safu got up from the couch to put on popcorn, and Nezumi pivoted so his back was against the armrest and he could stretch his legs onto Shion’s lap.

“It’s been three months. Exactly. Today,” Shion said, then looked at Nezumi.

“Three months of what?”

“Three months that we’ve been dating, and you’ve been living here.”

“I hate time. Don’t talk to me about it,” Nezumi said, leaning back against the armrest.

“I’m only bringing it up because you’ve been paying the rent on your other apartment for these three months, which seems unnecessary seeing as you’re not living there.”

“Saying _other_ apartment implies this is my apartment. Which it’s not.”

“You hate wasting money. What’s more of a waste of money than paying rent for a Tokyo apartment that you’re not even living in?” Shion asked.

“And you’re suggesting what?”

“End your lease. We’ll go back throughout the week to move the rest of your belongings here.”

“This is Safu’s apartment. You’re just going to make this decision without her permission?”

“He asked for my permission two weeks ago,” Safu said, returning with the popcorn.

“And you gave it?” Nezumi asked her.

“Sure. I like you.”

“You do?” Nezumi demanded.

“Any more arguments?” Shion asked.

“I’m not moving in with you.”

“You already have. All I’m suggesting is you stop paying useless rent. But it’s your money, do what you want with it,” Shion said, shrugging and reaching for a fistful of popcorn.

Nezumi lifted his legs from Shion’s lap and pulled them to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “I’m keeping my apartment,” Nezumi said, and Shion just looked at him, then stuffed his fistful of popcorn in his mouth.

“Mkay,” he said, his mouth full.

“Are you guys done talking? The judges are about to try the dishes,” Safu said.

“We’re done talking,” Nezumi told her. He turned his head. Looked back at the television. Three months. That meant it had been the three best months of his life.

He needed to keep his apartment. He’d need somewhere to live when he broke it off with Shion, and his apartment had good rent and was right across from the theater. He supposed he could sublet it, but he had no real desire to do that.

The only flaw in these three months was Karan. Nezumi had started calling her, occasionally, but she didn’t pick up. He asked Shion for updates on her, but not too often because to talk about her upset Shion. He visited the bakery a few times, stood outside and watched through the glass windows until once Karan looked up and locked eyes with him, and since then Nezumi hadn’t gone back.

He baked constantly in Safu and Shion’s apartment. Shion dropped off the food at homeless shelters around the city. He didn’t say anything to Nezumi about it, though Nezumi heard Safu and Shion talking about it early one morning when they must have thought Nezumi was still asleep.

_This is indicative of a larger issue, Shion. It’s not healthy for him to be baking fifteen pies a day. This fight with Karan is clearly bringing up old feelings of abandonment by his family._

_They didn’t abandon him, they died._

_To an eight-year-old, that would equal abandonment psychologically._

_My mom hasn’t abandoned him._

_She’s told him not to come back to what he likely equates as the closest to thing to a home he’s had in a century. He’s been forced to choose between you and her, and he chose you, and that’s his choice, and there’s nothing you can do to change his mind, but that doesn’t mean the loss of your mother in his life is not affecting him on a level that’s likely deeper than he’s consciously aware of._

Nezumi had gone back to Shion’s room then, closed the door softly behind him. He’d climbed into Shion’s bed and pulled the blankets over his head. He’d tried to fall asleep and make this a memory he didn’t keep.

But now, sitting on the couch watching some cooking show, Nezumi could still remember the conversation.

“Popcorn?” Shion asked, nudging Nezumi’s shins with the bowl.

Nezumi reached out, took a few kernels. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, talking about your apartment. You don’t have to end your lease, it doesn’t matter to me if you want to keep it,” Shion said quietly, hand catching Nezumi’s wrist before he could move it from the bowl.

“I’m not upset,” Nezumi told him.

“Remember how you’re trying not to lie to me?” Shion asked.

“I’m not lying to you. I’m not upset about the apartment,” Nezumi said back, pulling his wrist free from Shion’s loose hold.

Shion said nothing back. On screen, a judge took a bite into a contestant’s burger, which had been cooked with the meat of an octopus. She chewed for a long time, then placed the burger on her plate and declared it the most delicious burger she’d ever eaten in her life.

*

Nezumi was teaching Safu how to make different flowers out of icing a few days later. She was horrible at it.

“I hate this,” Safu declared, setting down the icing bag. “I am an expert in my field and yet icing flowers has the power to make me feel completely inadequate.”

“What do you do, again?” Nezumi asked.

“Psychoanalysis. Should I write it down for you?”

“But what is that? Like therapy?”

“Like therapy,” Safu confirmed, picking up the icing bag again. “I think the problem is I’m squeezing the bag too hard, right? Or too lightly?”

“And you think I need therapy,” Nezumi said.

Safu set the bag back down. “Shion told you?”

“No.”

Safu looked at him for a moment, then tucked her hair behind her ears and nodded once. “You’ve suffered severe trauma, and that’s outside the fact that your immortality would have psychological effects on you that no one, certainly not the person suffering those effects, could begin to fathom.”

“If no therapist is going to understand what I’m going through, why bother talking to one?”

“You don’t talk to therapists to be understood. You talk to therapists to confront your own thoughts.”

“And if I don’t want to confront my own thoughts?” Nezumi asked.

“Then you don’t talk to a therapist,” Safu said.

Nezumi picked up the icing bag. Finished the flowers Safu hadn’t gotten to yet on the cake he’d made that morning. “I guess I won’t talk to a therapist then,” he said, after he finished the flowers around the circumference of the cake.

“Admittedly, no therapist would know what to say to you. We’re not trained to talk to people who can’t die.”

“But you are trained to talk to people who want to die. Aren’t you?” Nezumi asked, adding extra flowers in the middle of the cake, a pile of roses.

Safu was silent for a moment, then said, “I hope you know that you can talk to me whenever you want.”

Nezumi glanced at her. “And I’ll have patient-therapist privilege? Or whatever it’s called when you can’t tell anyone what we talk about?”

“Anyone as in Shion?”

Nezumi said nothing.

“I won’t tell him.”

Nezumi nodded. Held out the icing bag, and Safu took it. “Try again. You were squeezing too lightly,” he said.

She held the icing bag over the cake. Nezumi watched the petals form, sloppy and uncertain, looking the same as Nezumi’s petals when he’d first started, when it was Karan teaching him.

*

In bed one night, Nezumi lay on his stomach recovering from sex while Shion lay next to him, tracing around Nezumi’s scar. Nezumi had never told Shion about how he’d gotten his burns, about how his family had died. He assumed Karan had told him.

So when Shion said, “Can I ask you something?” Nezumi figured he knew what he was going to be asked.

“You can ask me anything, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said. His arms were under his pillow, and he turned his head so he could see Shion.

“How many people have you had sex with?”

It took Nezumi a moment to realize he hadn’t been asked what he’d been expecting to be asked. “I don’t know,” he said, once he understood the question.

“A lot of people.”

“Yeah.”

“Hundreds.”

“Per year,” Nezumi admitted. He was working on being honest with Shion. On not hiding. He thought he was getting better at it.

Shion nodded, his cheek sliding against his own pillow. “You’ve never had an STD though.”

“I’m generally safe.”

“But not always.”

“Not always.”

“Statistically, with the number of strangers you’ve slept with, you should have gotten an STD. I think it’s your DNA again, keeping you from illness and disease.”

Nezumi closed his eyes and hummed. When Shion started talking about his DNA, Nezumi knew he should have been more invested, and he was certainly invested in the result. The process, however, was not altogether interesting at all.

“Have you ever been in a relationship?” Shion asked, and Nezumi opened his eyes again.

“No,” he said.

“This is your first one.”

“You knew that.”

“I suspected it. I don’t think it was ever confirmed.”

“Now it’s confirmed,” Nezumi said.

“In a hundred twenty-five years, there’s never been anyone else you’ve liked? Had a crush on even?”

Nezumi said nothing. Shion propped himself up on his forearms.

“How is that possible?”

Nezumi rolled onto his side, then his back. He looked at the ceiling.

“Why am I different than everyone you’ve known for a hundred twenty-five years? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand either,” Nezumi told the ceiling.

“Don’t you think it’s weird? Suddenly for the first time in over a century you had a crush—Wasn’t that strange for you?”

“What do you want me to say? Yes, it was strange. It is strange. All of this is strange. I don’t have any answers. I don’t know why I didn’t give a shit about anyone for a century, and I don’t know why that changed.” Nezumi heard his own voice, more annoyed than he’d intended.

Shion was silent then. Nezumi glanced at him after a minute.

“I’m not mad at you. I don’t know why that came out like that.”

“It’s okay. Sometimes I forget though, that you were alone for over a hundred years. That’s a long time to be alone. To not feel love and to not be loved.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to be an asshole?”

Shion dropped down again, pressed his forehead into Nezumi’s arm. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “No, I’m not. I just suddenly started thinking about all of that, and it made me sad for you.”

Nezumi felt himself stiffen.

“Sorry,” Shion whispered again.

“Stop saying that.”

Shion’s fingers fell into Nezumi’s, wove between them, and Nezumi thought about moving his hand, but he didn’t.

“Do I make you happy? Or do I make things worse?” Shion asked, so quietly at first Nezumi wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

Nezumi was cold. He was naked from sex, and his sweat had cooled, and the blankets were kicked to the bottom of the bed, and Shion wasn’t close enough to him that his body was keeping him warm.

He sat up. Found his boxers bunched with the blanket, pulled them over his legs and hips, then pulled up the blanket too before lying back down, shifting closer to Shion. They laid beneath the blanket and looked at each other.

“After my family died, I forgot about happiness,” Nezumi told him. “I forgot it was an emotion that was real, that existed outside of fiction. I thought it was made up, like dragons and magic. I thought my memories of it were fake. And then I met Karan, and you. And then I felt it, but I didn’t understand what it was for a long time. I understand it now. And for however long it’s been with you like this, I’ve felt it even more, more than I remember from my oldest memories, from when no one had died yet and I hadn’t lived for long enough to hate being alive.”

Shion reached his hand out of the blankets, tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ear, pulled his hand back under the blankets.

“Five months. It’s been five months,” he said softly.

“I don’t want to know,” Nezumi reminded.

“My mom makes you happy too.”

“Shion. Don’t start this. Let’s go to sleep.”

“It’s my birthday next week.”

Nezumi hadn’t realized this. “Twenty-four?” he asked, thinking back to the previous birthday.

“Yeah.”

“Next week?”

“Friday.”

“Exactly a week,” Nezumi said, thinking it was Thursday night but probably Friday morning by now, it was likely past midnight.

“Mmm hmm.”

“And you want to celebrate at Karan’s.”

Shion nodded against his pillow.

“We’ll make it work for your birthday, okay? Don’t worry. We’ll go to Karan’s, and it’ll be fine.”

Shion’s eyebrows creased. “I don’t want it to just be fine for my birthday. I know you miss her. I know she misses you. I thought this whole thing would be over by now, but you haven’t been to the bakery in five months, you haven’t talked to her in five months. This is wrong, Nezumi.”

“She needs time.”

“She’s had time!”

“She’s had five months. That’s not time. That’s nothing,” Nezumi said.

“For you, maybe, but not for normal people,” Shion argued. “Don’t give her excuses, don’t act like she’s right to do this to you.”

Nezumi could easily have argued. _She is right._ He didn’t. He didn’t want to get into this. Shion didn’t understand that both Nezumi and Karan were thinking about the future. They were thinking about the years to come. They were thinking about what would happen when Shion aged, and Nezumi didn’t, and Shion wasn’t thinking about that time, not clearly, not with any sense at all. His judgment was clouded. He thought the future was bright. He saw birthdays as good things.

“Can we go to sleep?” Nezumi asked instead of arguing.

“How can you ignore something that’s so important to you? You love my mom. I know you do. How can you just endure this?”

Nezumi closed his eyes. “I’m going to sleep whether you are or not.”

“I’ve looked at your phone, you know. I see that you call her. I see that you’ve texted her. I see that she’s ignoring you.”

“I’m sleeping, stop talking to me.”

“I can’t keep pretending not to be mad at her for doing this to you.”

Nezumi opened his eyes again, unable to stop himself from retorting any longer. “You did the same thing. You avoided me too, or do you not remember that?”

Shion blinked at him. “That was different.”

“How? You were protecting yourself, right? That’s why you didn’t come home for months, because it made you upset to be around me. Your mother is ignoring my texts and calls and refusing to let me work in the bakery because she’s trying to protect you. Every day I feel the absence of her in my life, so every day I’m not allowed to forget that your mother disapproves of this, and I’m not allowed to forget why she disapproves. That’s what she wants, and she’s right to want that, she’s right to make me remember that. Now stop arguing with me about this. I told you if you want to vent about your mother, you’re not to do so to me. Complain to her with Safu if you want to, but I don’t want to hear it. I’m on her side on this. I’m in the wrong, I’m being selfish, that’s what this is no matter how you prefer to see it.”

Shion looked like he was going to argue, so Nezumi sat up, pulling the blanket off his shoulders.

“Argue with me more, and I won’t spend the night here,” he warned.

Shion sat up too. “That’s incredibly childish. You can’t just leave if you don’t like my opinion.”

“Believe it or not, I can do what I want,” Nezumi said back.

Shion’s fists were tight around the blanket. “Fine. Fine, you win.” He flopped back down on the bed, turning on his side with his back to Nezumi and lying stiffly.

Nezumi looked at his tense shoulders, then lay down too, his chest to Shion’s back. He curled his body around Shion’s, slipped his leg between Shion’s legs, touched his lips to the nape of Shion’s neck.

“Don’t be mad, Your Majesty.”

“You’re not allowed to be nice now. Shut up.”

Nezumi smiled. He wound his arm around Shion’s waist, pulled Shion closer to him.

“Stop that. I don’t want to be near you,” Shion said shortly.

“I’m not hugging you. I just want your body heat.”

“Put on a sweater,” Shion snapped, and Nezumi laughed against Shion’s skin. He felt Shion’s body slowly relax in his arms.

Nezumi closed his eyes. He felt the slowing of Shion’s breaths in the way Shion’s back moved against his own chest.

“You’re my favorite person in the world, but you’re so infuriating,” Shion whispered, when Nezumi thought he was asleep.

“You should pick a better favorite,” Nezumi whispered back.

“I should,” Shion said.

Nezumi tightened his arms around Shion involuntarily.

“But I won’t,” Shion added, as if he could read the worries Nezumi would never acknowledge himself.

*


	11. Chapter 11

Shion’s birthday was on a Saturday. Nezumi had shows during the day and night, so by the time he headed to the bakery, the sky was dark.

He called Shion, who picked up immediately.

“Are you leaving the theater now?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in ten minutes. How’s Karan?”

“Excited to see you,” Shion said, after a moment.

This was a lie. Nezumi had texted her in the morning to let her know he was coming to the bakery that night for Shion’s birthday, and she had texted back only, _I haven’t changed my mind about anything._

But Nezumi let Shion lie, since it was his birthday and all.

“You are coming, right?” Shion asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And you’ll stay even if she asks you to leave?”

“I thought she was excited to see me,” Nezumi reminded.

Shion was silent on the other end.

Nezumi sighed. “Let’s just see what happens when I get there, okay?”

“Okay,” Shion said quietly.

“Whatever happens, tonight we’ll be back home, and I’ll give you a birthday treat. Deal?”

“You called my apartment home.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Nezumi said, and then he hung up before Shion could add anything else.

Nezumi’s hands were sweating by the time he got to the bakery. He wiped his palms on his jeans, looked at the bakery doors. The lights in the front room were on, but a sign was taped onto the front of the bakery that read, _Closed for Shion’s Birthday!_

Nezumi himself had written the sign years ago, when Shion turned seven years old, the first birthday Nezumi had shared with him.

Nezumi pushed the door open. The ding of the bell was familiar in a way that made his chest tighten, and he almost walked back out. He hadn’t seen Karan in half a year, as Shion had informed him this morning before Nezumi had to remind him that time meant nothing to him.

But it did mean something. Not seeing Karan meant something. And seeing her now meant something.

She was sitting at the corner table where they always did on Shion’s birthday, a cake on the table that Nezumi hadn’t baked. Safu was on one side of her and Shion the other. There was a chair open between Shion and Safu and across from Karan. His chair.

Karan had looked up at the ding of the door. Nezumi didn’t move from the entrance.

“Karan,” he said.

“Did you get my text?” she asked, after looking at him for so long Nezumi thought she might not speak to him at all.

“What text?” Shion asked, looking at Nezumi too.

“Can we talk privately?” Nezumi asked, his words sounding weak to his own ears.

“Nothing I said to you before is different, and I don’t think anything you say will be different either. Do you want to have the same conversation we’ve already had?” Karan asked. Her voice was hard but there was an undercurrent to it, and Nezumi knew she was trying not to cry.

Nezumi knew Karan was trying not to cry because his own throat was too tight. His own eyes burned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d loved someone like he loved Karan. He didn’t know if she was like a mother to him, or a sister, or a best friend, or what. It didn’t matter. She was just Karan. She was his family, all of them, everyone given back to him inside of her, and he was hurting her. He’d been given a second chance to have his family, and again, he was betraying them the same way he’d betrayed them as a kid, running from the fire and not taking anyone with him, not saving any other life but his own.

He was selfish and he always had been, and he hadn’t changed in over a century.

“Mom, just today, can’t you—”

“Shion, don’t,” Karan said sharply. She lifted her hand, wiped her eyes. Nezumi stepped back. Reached for the handle of the door. He made himself look away from Karan, at Shion instead.

“Stay here. I’ll be at the apartment when you get there.”

“No!” Shion stood up, his chair legs dragging loud on the floor. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving, I’m just going home. Remember what we talked about. This isn’t Karan’s fault, and you’re not to be mad at her.”

“I’m mad at both of you! You both say you’re trying to protect me, but all this is doing is making me feel responsible for destroying your friendship.”

“You’re not responsible. I can’t stop you from feeling that way, but you’re wrong,” Nezumi said, and he opened the door, and the bell dinged again. “Don’t follow me. Have cake and celebrate with your family.”

“You’re my family,” Shion said.

Nezumi ignored him. Glanced at Karan, who looked pained more than anything, then left the bakery.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked. Counted in his head. At ten, he heard his name.

“Nezumi!”

Nezumi stopped walking. Didn’t turn around. Listened to Shion’s footsteps, but it sounded like more than one pair of footsteps, and then both Shion and Safu were in front of him.

“We’re coming home with you.”

“You’re not. You’re going back into that bakery and eating the cake your mother baked for you. That woman gave birth to you and raised you, and all you have is because of her. Go back and be respectful and grateful to her. Go, Shion, I’m not joking,” Nezumi said sternly, pointing to the bakery.

“You can’t order me around!” Shion shouted.

Safu stepped between them, raising her hands. “Guys, please. Let’s not yell at each other in the street. Shion, Nezumi’s right. You should go back. Your mom is devastated, couldn’t you see that?”

“She can fix all of this easily,” Shion snapped.

“No matter what you say or argue, this is how it is,” Safu said. “Why don’t we compromise? You go back, have a slice of cake with your mom, play nice. Me and Nezumi will get a drink somewhere close by, and you can join us in an hour. You can give her an hour, can’t you?”

“Why should I? Why are you on her side?” Shion demanded.

“Because I also think your relationship with Nezumi is a terrible idea, but I know you’re too stubborn to listen to me, so I quit trying to convince you otherwise long before Nezumi showed up at our apartment. Karan hasn’t quit. That’s the difference. And she won’t quit because she’s your mother.”

“This is unbelievable!” Shion shouted, throwing up his hands.

Nezumi reached for one of his hands, held it. “Listen. Safu’s plan is a good one. We’ll go to that bar we went to last year for your birthday, remember it? We’ll wait for you. Give her an hour, Shion. Do that for me.”

“And what will you do for me?” Shion snapped.

“What do you want?”

Shion stared hard at him. “I want you to get a tattoo of my name,” he finally said.

Nezumi waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. “Was that a joke?”

“No. You’re going to live forever, and I’m going to die, and I want you to remember me.”

Nezumi dropped Shion’s hand. “Are you crazy?”

“Promise me you’ll do that, and I’ll play nice with my mom. Not just for tonight, but for as long as you guys keep up this stupid feud. I’ll be good, and I won’t argue or complain about it, but you have to get a tattoo of my name. Or the flower I was named after. You can choose.”

Nezumi gaped at him, then turned to Safu. “Are you hearing this?”

She shrugged. “We’ve talked about it before. Though now seems like a bizarre time to bring it up.”

“Talked about _what_ before?” Nezumi demanded.

“He asked if I thought you’d do it. I said you’d put up a fight but give in eventually. I mean, that’s what you do, right? You argue and then you give in to anything he wants.”

Nezumi stared from Safu to Shion.

“Why don’t you just agree for now so he can get back to Karan before she thinks he’s really abandoned her,” Safu suggested.

“You need to promise, or I’m not going back in there,” Shion warned.

“The original deal was you play nice with your mom or I break up with you,” Nezumi reminded.

“Break up with me then!” Shion snapped.

Nezumi skin flooded with instant heat. He stepped back, confused, but worked not to show it.

“Either do it, or stop holding it over my head like a threat,” Shion said, his voice hard.

Nezumi made himself breathe evenly. He could break up with this man. He had to eventually—why not now? Just to teach him a lesson? It wouldn’t have to be permanent.

But when he opened his lips, nothing came out. Shion just looked at him, then raised his eyebrows.

“Good, I’m glad that’s settled,” he said. “So if you want me to keep being nice to my mother for doing this crap to you, then you have to promise to get the tattoo. A real promise.”

Nezumi still felt hollowed out by Shion’s _Break up with me_. No, what hollowed him was his inability to do it. But he kept himself together, and then he said, “Okay. I promise. Don’t let your mom’s disapproval of me affect your relationship, and I’ll get the tattoo.”

Shion looked at him for another few seconds, then nodded, seeming satisfied, and turned to Safu. “Go to the bar, I’ll meet you guys in an hour.”

“See you,” Safu said, and Shion walked away from them.

Nezumi watched until Shion had walked back into the bakery, and then Safu tugged his hand.

“Come on, take me to this bar. You look like you could use a drink.”

“Do I?” Nezumi asked vaguely, turning to lead them to the bar Shion had taken them to a year before, where Shion had danced with him.

Safu released his hand and linked her arm through Nezumi’s, and Nezumi didn’t pull away. They were silent until they got to the bar, and even then they didn’t speak until after they’d sat on stools at the bar and both downed two shots in a row.

Safu slammed hers down, gasping. “That’s disgusting,” she breathed, wiping a hand over her lips. “Okay, now tell me, when is the expiration date?”

“Of this?” Nezumi asked, peering into his empty shot glass.

“Of your relationship. You’re planning to break up with him, right? That’s why Karan disapproves so strongly. That’s why you yourself say your relationship is selfish. This is temporary, and it’s only Shion who’s convinced you’ll get married and be together forever. Well, our forever, which isn’t quite the same as your forever, now is it?”

Nezumi rubbed his hand over his face. “Did Shion tell you all this?”

“No. My occupation is to read people. You’re a difficult subject in most areas, but one thing about you is obvious and undeniable. You don’t get close to people. Shion is an exception, but the only reason you’re letting him be an exception is because you have a planned expiration date. That way, you get to decide when things break off. You’re in control, you’re leaving him. If you stay with him until he dies, then he’s the one in control, he’s the one who leaves you, and you don’t get a say in it at all. If you don’t abandon him first, then he’ll abandon you, and you can’t let that happen to you again.”

“Can you stop now?” Nezumi asked mildly, waving over to the bartender for more shots.

“Sorry. I got carried away. It’s not like I can talk about you like this to Shion. But I’m right, aren’t I? So how long will you give him?”

The bartender placed their shots in front of them.

“Two more,” Nezumi said, picking one up.

“That’s enough for me,” Safu said, shaking her head, so Nezumi took hers and downed it too.

“Still want those two more?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, pushing the empty shot glasses to the side.

“You won’t tell me how long you’re going to let this last,” Safu said. “That’s probably better. The less I have to lie to Shion about, the better. But were you telling the truth about the tattoo?”

“Don’t you think you ask too many questions?” Nezumi asked, before picking up the next shot the bartender set in front of him, then the other.

“I think I’ve asked remarkably little questions considering that an immortal man is living in my apartment,” Safu replied, her gaze slipping to the empty shot glasses clustered beside Nezumi’s elbow on the counter.

Nezumi, too, looked, just to keep count. Six shots. He’d frequently done much worse.

“Two more,” he said to the bartender, who hesitated.

“Maybe have some water,” she suggested.

“Don’t worry, I can handle it,” Nezumi said, smiling at her in a way he knew would work, and then she was filling his shots.

“Has your flirting ever failed to work on anyone?” Safu asked—another question.

Nezumi pointed at her. “You. Remember?”

“I’m sure it would have worked had I not known who you were immediately.” 

“I’m not so sure,” Nezumi said back, drinking his seventh shot, and then his eighth. It was nothing but water to him. He’d been alive for over a century, and he’d spent a good amount of it doing nothing but drinking, doing much worse than drinking. He signaled to the bartender again.

“Why? You’re very attractive,” Safu said.

“Are you hitting on me?”

“Not at all. I’m stating a fact. I don’t doubt you’re a good lover either, I hear you and Shion quite clearly despite the earplugs you bought me. I’d have every reason to be susceptible to your flirting.”

Nezumi leaned closer to her, holding another shot, unsure which one it was but he preferred to lose count. “You never bring anyone to the apartment.”

“So?”

“So you don’t care about sex.”

Safu smiled. “There are other places to have sex.”

“So you do have sex?”

“Is my sex life really what you want to talk about to distract yourself from how much it hurt to see Karan for the first time in six months only to have her again tell you to leave?”

“You’re a terrible therapist. You’re supposed to talk about the trauma only if the other person wants to talk about it. And I don’t.”

“So this feels traumatic to you?” Safu asked.

Nezumi drank another shot. “No,” he said. He picked up another shot glass, but it was empty, so he put it back down and looked at the others on the counter before realizing they were all empty. “Bartender!”

The bartender poured him more shots.

“You should cut him off,” Safu said.

“You should not do any such thing,” Nezumi said back, “and I’ll be inclined to reward you.”

The bartender smiled.

“Nezumi,” Safu warned.

“This isn’t trauma,” Nezumi told her, remembering her question and spinning on his stool to face her again, nearly falling off of it, but Safu’s hands were on his knees, settling him before leaving him again. “Trauma,” Nezumi paused to take a shot, “is a whole other thing.”

“Like losing everyone you know and love at once in a fire.”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Karan is someone you know and love. One of only two people in your life that you know and love currently and for over a century. And she’s abandoning you. I’d say that’s traumatic.”

“I’d say you don’t know shit about trauma.”

Safu licked her lips. Then held out her hand. Nezumi handed her the shot he was holding, then picked up another, and they clinked them before drinking.

“Disgusting,” Safu hissed, putting down her glass. “You’re not even wincing at all.”

“I told you. I’ve had experience.”

“Before Shion you used to drink a lot.”

Nezumi picked up another shot glass. The bartender seemed to understand now to simply keep them coming.

“But Shion changed things.”

“And Karan,” Nezumi said, wiping his hand over his lips.

“Why?”

“Don’t know. Shion asked the same thing the other day. Are you guys in cahoots or something?”

“You deliberately isolated yourself for over a century. That can’t just change for no reason.”

“Then what’s the reason?” Nezumi asked, taking another shot.

Safu drummed her fingers on the counter. “Shion thinks you’re soulmates,” she said after a moment. “That fate is involved in some way. That it kept you alive so you could meet him.”

“Shion’s a fucking idiot.”

“So you don’t think that.”

“If this is all fate’s fault,” Nezumi said, swaying on his stool now, aware that he was slurring and slowing down his speech to articulate better, “then fate fucking screwed me over. I’d much rather have died in that fire than been forced to survive all this time just so I could meet him.”

Safu’s hand was on his shoulder, but she wasn’t looking at him. “Cut him off now.” She looked back at him. “Don’t tell him that. Okay?”

“Tell him what?” Nezumi asked. He was sleepy now. He leaned his cheek on his hand and his elbow slid across the counter, nearly knocking off several shot glasses.

“Shit. Come here, you should sit on a chair, you’re going to fall off the stool,” Safu said, and then she was pulling him off the stool, and Nezumi thought he’d fall but his feet hit the floor, and then he was being pushed on a chair.

Nezumi rested his arms on the table and his head on his arms. He groaned.

“Are you going to vomit?”

“No,” he mumbled. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t bother opening them.

“When are you going to break up with Shion?”

Nezumi cracked open his eyes. Safu was leaning too close to him.

“Tell me. I’ll be picking up the pieces. You should give me warning.”

“I don’t know.”

“In another six months, you’ll have been together for a year. Is that when you’ll do it?”

“I thought you didn’t wanna know,” Nezumi mumbled.

“I was lying. I won’t tell him. Two years? It can’t be more than two years. You’ll destroy him if you let him have you for two years. He’s already absurdly in love with you. I can’t imagine what he’ll be two years down the road. You should do it in six months. Then you can have a year with him. That has to be enough.”

Nezumi closed his eyes again. “I don’t wanna break up with him,” he whispered.

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You will. You should do it sooner rather than later.”

“No.”

“Karan’s right to hate you. You’re going to break him.”

“Karan hates me?” Nezumi asked. He heard his voice break. His eyes were wet, and he felt when a drop of water trickled from the corner of one down over the bridge of his nose.

“You have to pull yourself together before Shion gets here. It’s his birthday, and it’s already been a trainwreck,” Safu hissed.

Nezumi turned his face to bury it in his folded arms. Safu was talking to him, but soon her words were nothing but meaningless sound, and then he couldn’t hear her at all.

*

Nezumi woke up and knew immediately he was going to vomit. Luckily, there was a trash can lined with a plastic bag right in front of him, so all Nezumi had to do was sit up and hunch over it and then he was retching.

In the middle of his retching, the surface beneath him began shifting. A bed, he realized. And then someone was behind him, rubbing his back, pulling his hair off his face and to the back of his neck.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” _Shion._

Nezumi vomited more. In between retches, he hung his head low in the trash. His eyes were wet and closed. He didn’t open them.

“All done?” Shion asked, after Nezumi had been hanging his head without retching for some amount of time that was longer than the previous breaks between retches.

“I dunno,” Nezumi said. His voice was hoarse.

“Sit still for a second, I’ll be right back.”

Shion’s hand was gone from his back, and then the bed was moving again. It made creaks that sounded like Nezumi’s old bed from that old apartment, that apartment he’d lived in for so long but moved out of so he could live with Shion.

Nezumi didn’t lift his head out the trash to look around. Instead, he retched again, but barely anything came out his mouth. His stomach convulsed. His body shook. He was sweating and wished Shion hadn’t left, and then Shion was back.

“Here, damp paper towels to wipe your mouth,” Shion said, and Nezumi lifted his head then, opened his eyes, saw only Shion’s hand and the paper towels in them and took these.

He wiped at his mouth. Threw the paper towels in the trash on top of his vomit. Shion gave him a dry paper towel, so Nezumi wiped his lips with that, and then Shion gave him a glass of mouthwash.

“Rinse and spit in the trash,” he instructed.

Nezumi did as he was told.

Shion took the trash and disappeared again. Then he was back, again with the trash can, but there was a new plastic bag lining it. He also had a glass of water and told Nezumi to drink it, so Nezumi did.

While he’d been gone, Nezumi had looked around. He was in his old apartment, his bedroom. It looked like nighttime, but his blinds were dark and shut out the sun, so it could have been day.

The room smelled like vomit and alcohol. Shion took the empty water glass from Nezumi when he finished drinking. He sat on the bed beside Nezumi, pushed Nezumi’s bangs off his forehead and held them against the top of Nezumi’s head like he was taking Nezumi’s temperature.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Is it daytime?”

“It’s night. A little after four in the morning.”

“How did I get here?”

“Safu and I helped you.”

“I passed out at the bar before you got there.”

“No. You were awake. You fell asleep here,” Shion said.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes.

“You don’t remember? You must have blacked out. Safu said you drank a lot.”

“Did I say anything to you?”

Shion looked at him for a long moment. “You said a lot of things,” he finally said.

Nezumi rubbed at his eyes. “What did I say?” he asked. His head was pounding. His stomach still felt as if it was rolling inside his body, unchecked. His throat was raw.

“You said you loved me. You said you didn’t want to break up with me. You were very insistent on that. Do you think I want us to break up? I don’t want that. I’m sorry I said that to you outside the bakery. I was just—I was tired of you saying that, threatening to break up with me, that’s the only reason I challenged you to do it. But I knew you wouldn’t. That’s not what I want. I thought that was obvious to you.”

Nezumi’s eyelids were heavy. He could barely keep them open. “Did I say anything else?”

“Nezumi, you know I don’t want us to break up, right?”

“I know.”

“Then why were you saying that? Over and over, you said you didn’t want to break up with me. As if I wouldn’t believe you or something. Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?”

“I don’t know. I was drunk,” Nezumi muttered, letting himself fall back onto the bed.

Shion followed him, turning Nezumi’s body by his shoulders, and Nezumi was too tired to protest. “Sleep on your side, like this, there you go.”

Nezumi closed his eyes. Felt Shion’s fingers in his hair.

“It was seeing my mom. Right? She’s not going to make us break up. She’ll come around, I’m sure she will. You’re right, she just needs time. Don’t worry, we don’t have to break up,” Shion said softly, reassuringly, trying to comfort Nezumi as if Nezumi was the one who needed comfort.

_I’m going to break up with you._ Nezumi said nothing. Already, he felt sleep coming for him again, and he gave in easily, willingly, with relief.

*

Nezumi woke hungover. He laid still for as long as he could, but he had to pee. Shion wasn’t in bed beside him.

He sat up, and his stomach swooped, and he grabbed the trashcan on his side of the bed and stuck his face in it, but all he could manage was dry heaving. He gasped into the trashcan for several breaths before standing up, stumbling out his room to the bathroom, leaving the lights off because he’d lived in this apartment for over a century, and for the majority of it, he’d been either drunk or hungover or a combination of both. He knew how to maneuver it in pain, with his eyes closed, in the dark, while plastered, while high—in any condition.

Nezumi peed, took three Advil from the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror, undressed, and got in the shower without turning on the light—a routine he’d fallen out of years before but easily returned to now. He realized he didn’t have a towel on its usual hook only after his shower, and he stumbled naked and wet to the closet, got a new one and dragged it over his body halfheartedly before tying it around his waist and going to his bedroom.

He’d forgotten he’d taken most of his clothes to Shion’s. He’d left a few pairs of boxers and found a hoodie that he pulled on, pushing the sleeves up to his elbows before heading to the kitchen, trailing his hand along the wall because he thought he was still a little drunk.

Shion was in the living room reading on the couch. He looked up when Nezumi got to the end of the hallway.

“How do you feel?” Shion asked.

Nezumi waved his hand in lieu of speaking and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, but there was nothing in it, and he groaned, remembering he’d emptied all the contents when he’d come for the bulk of his clothes what was probably months before.

Nezumi shut the fridge door. Looked in the cabinet for coffee, but even that was gone.

“Fuck,” he cursed, slamming the cupboard door too loudly by accident.

“Everything okay in there?” Shion called.

Nezumi stumbled out of the kitchen, made it to the living room, and collapsed on the couch, nearly sitting on Shion’s legs, but Shion pulled his feet up in time.

“You look terrible,” Shion offered.

“Thanks,” Nezumi mumbled, closing his eyes and curling into a ball in the corner of the couch.

“I played nice with Mom and even went to the bakery this morning. I couldn’t fall back asleep after you woke up to vomit, and the bakery was opening around that time anyway, so I went over to help prep. It’d been a while. It was nice. Well, the baking was nice. Not yelling at Mom wasn’t great, but I managed.”

“So many words,” Nezumi whispered.

“I thought you’d be happy I’m making amends. Or pretending to, at least. I think Mom is wondering why I’m not mad at her. I guess I’m a better liar than anyone thought,” Shion said.

“Please shut up.”

“It’s past noon.”

Nezumi groaned.

“I brought home some of Mom’s muffins. They’re not as good as yours, but they’re in the kitchen. I suspect you didn’t see them the first time you were blundering around in there.”

Nezumi opened his eyes. He blinked blearily at Shion in front of him on the couch. “Were you really nice to your mother?” His voice was alarmingly scratchy and hoarse.

Shion reached around him, grabbed a mug from the side table on the other side of the couch, and held it out. “Have the rest of my tea, I’ll make more. And yes, I told you I would be. Even though she’s being horrible to you. But this is our deal. And you’ll get a tattoo.”

Nezumi reached out, took the tea. He sipped it and watched Shion over the rim of his mug. He was not going to get a tattoo of Shion’s name or of a goddamn flower. But if the man wanted to believe he would, Nezumi wasn’t going to stop him.

“I was thinking your wrist, but maybe it’d be painful having to see it every day. So maybe the back of your shoulder? Or I really like the tattoos people get on the nape of their neck. You have long hair that could hide it, but you usually tie your hair up, so it’d be visible. I think I prefer the flower to my name. A flower tattoo would look really beautiful on you. Like a watercolor one,” Shion rambled.

Nezumi drank Shion’s tea and let Shion’s voice wash over him. He stopped trying to decipher the individual words and settled into the corner of his couch, closing his eyes again. He’d fall asleep again and deal with this some other time.

*

More time passed. Nezumi didn’t see Karan again until several weeks later, when he was leaving the theater and heard his name just as he left the building.

Karan stood feet from him. Nezumi walked up to her. He didn’t know exactly how long it’d been since Shion’s birthday. Around a month, he guessed.

“You were lovely,” Karan said, when he was in front of her.

“You were at the show?” Nezumi asked, instead of asking why Karan was speaking to him.

Karan’s arms were wound around her waist as if she needed something to hold onto. “Yes. I’ve been coming for months.”

“You have?”

“I sit where I know you won’t be able to see me from the stage. And I only come when I know Shion won’t be here, when he has class.”

Nezumi let himself look at her properly. She looked older. He wanted to look away, but he hadn’t seen her in so long. It hurt to look at her, but it’d hurt more when he couldn’t.

“I miss you. I have to check on you, to make sure you’re doing okay. To hear your voice. To see you. You’re breathtaking as always on that stage. Even more breathtaking. The critics have noticed too. Have you seen?”

Nezumi nodded. He’d been getting even more raving reviews than usual in the past few months. Critics speculated he had a new acting coach or was on a new kind of diet. Others speculated he’d fallen in love. Nezumi stopped reading the reviews after that one.

“It’s because you’re happy. I can see that,” Karan said quietly.

Nezumi said nothing. He wanted to touch her. He wanted her to hug him. There was no comfort he knew like being hugged by this woman. He missed her warmth. Wanted to breathe in the scent of her, the same scent as the bakery.

“It’s incredible to see you happy. It’s almost like looking at a stranger except that you’re still the same. You’re always the same.”

“Karan,” Nezumi said quietly. He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t know what he was allowed to say. He wanted to ask if he could come back to the bakery. He wanted to tell her he missed her. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to yell at her. He wanted to ask her for permission to ruin her son’s life because he didn’t know how to break up with him, and he had to soon, he knew that, but he didn’t know how.

“Shion, too. He’s like a stranger. He’s always been a happy kid. But since you started dating, he’s become something else. A happiness I hadn’t thought possible.”

“Does that mean—Did you change your mind about us?” Nezumi asked after a moment.

Karan’s eyebrows creased the same way Shion’s did when he was confused, when he was trying to understand. “Of course not. It makes it harder to know how happy you can make him.”

“He’s working on a way to make me die,” Nezumi offered.

“I know. He tells me a little about it. He’s very hopeful. But you’re not.”

Nezumi slipped his hands in his pockets. “Hoping feels like an unnecessary risk. If he can do it, he will. If he can’t, then he can’t.”

Karan sighed. She looked away from Nezumi, at their apartment building across the street. Nezumi looked at it too. It’d never been a home. He’d lived there for a century and it’d never been a home before Karan moved in across the hall.

“I wanted to thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but you convinced Shion to keep talking to me, to visit home, to not shut me out even though I’m doing it to you. He’s stubborn, and I’m not sure how you convinced him not to be angry with me.”

“He loves you. He’d be miserable without you. It wasn’t hard to convince him it’s better for everyone if he doesn’t hold a grudge.”

Karan glanced back at Nezumi. “You always were a great liar, Nezumi. That’s a good skill.”

Nezumi swallowed. Looked at the apartment building again because it was easier than to look at her. It only made him miss her more, to speak to her now.

“Sometimes I think I should just let it go. I should just accept that this is how it is. You’re in a relationship, and nothing I can do will stop you. The customers at the bakery certainly miss you. I’ve started baking again, and Mio mans the front, but even I can’t bake like you can anymore. And I miss you. Terribly. I feel like I’ve lost a son.”

“You’re not old enough to be my mother,” Nezumi mumbled.

“I want to let things go back to how they were. But I can’t. Do you understand that?”

“I understand, Karan. I know the longer I keep doing this with Shion, the harder it will be for him. I know why you can’t forgive me for this.”

“But you won’t break up with him.”

Nezumi clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I can’t,” he managed. “Not yet.”

Karan could say nothing, as two young women bounded up to them, nearly standing between Nezumi and Karan. “Excuse me, Eternal Eve? Or do you go by just—just Eve? Sorry to bother you, anyway, would you sign our playbills?”

Nezumi glanced at the girls. Reminded himself to smile at them. “Of course, give me one second.” He stepped around them, closer to Karan. “Karan, if we could just—”

“It was good to see you. Even if it is at Shion’s expense, it’s good to see you like this. Happy,” Karan said, reaching out, holding Nezumi’s hand, squeezing it too briefly before releasing it and stepping away from him.

“Karan—”

Karan turned and walked quickly away. Nezumi watched her cross the street, but the girls wanting the autographs distracted him so that he couldn’t watch her walk into the building. By the time he finished signing their playbills and answering their questions, Karan had disappeared.

*

On Halloween, Shion came home with costumes.

“How old are you?” Nezumi asked, when Shion ran into the kitchen to announce his purchases.

“Put down the spatulas, we’re going dancing,” Shion said, grabbing Nezumi’s wrist even though he hadn’t yet put down his spatula.

Safu, who he’d been baking mixed berry scones with, took the spatula from him just before Shion dragged him out the kitchen to their bedroom with unnecessary force.

“Sexy nurse or doctor?” Shion asked in their room, holding up two bags.

“Seriously?”

Shion was grinning. “The sexy nurse comes with fishnets.”

Nezumi crossed his arms. “I’ll be the doctor.”

Shion laughed, threw a bag at him. “Just kidding! They were both sexy nurses. Different costumes though, the store had a lot of variations. One is a two-piece, but the other has those strappy things that hold up the stockings. Which one did you get?” he asked, looking into his own bag.

Nezumi peered into his bag. “The strappy things. So yours is a two-piece?”

Shion looked up from his bag, still grinning like an idiot. “See, I knew you’d have fun. Safu already has hers.”

“She’ll never wear one of these,” Nezumi said, opening the packet. The costumes were for women and also came with a hat and rubber stethoscope.

“She’s going as the doctor,” Shion said back.

Nezumi held up a pair of white panties with a red cross on the back. “This is not going to fit me.”

“It’s the costume. You have to wear it,” Shion warned.

“Have you got one of these?”

Shion dug around in his packet, then pulled out a red thong. “Oh,” he said.

“You have to wear it,” Nezumi said back.

“So you’ll do it? I thought I’d have to work harder to convince you,” Shion said.

Nezumi was already undressing. “I’ve had a nurse fantasy ever since you started taking my blood, Your Majesty. If I’ve got to put this on to make you put that on, it’s hardly a sacrifice.”

An hour later, they were at some club Shion had heard about from his students and as drunk as all the costume-clad students around them.

“Don’t you care if your students see you drunk in a woman’s skimpy nurse costume?” Nezumi asked, when Shion dragged him and Safu away from the bar to the dance floor.

“I don’t care about anything but dancing with you!” Shion shouted back, because the music was so loud he had to shout.

Nezumi couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to a club like this, a place where his body was mashed with others, where he could barely hear anything but the music, where the lights strobed over their faces so he only caught glimpses of Shion at a time in that nurse’s hat that was ridiculous and cute all at once.

Nezumi didn’t dance at first. He watched Shion and Safu jump around, laughing and twirling each other, and then a guy in a pumpkin suit came up to Safu, and she smiled at him, and Shion’s arms were around Nezumi’s neck, and Nezumi looked down at him.

“Dance,” Shion told him, so Nezumi did.

The music seemed to get louder with every second. Shion’s skin was slick where Nezumi touched it—his waist and lower back that were bare because his nurse custom was a low-riding skirt and a crop top, his neck, his arms. Nezumi had his hair in a ponytail, but his bangs still plastered to his face, and the ends of his ponytail stuck and unstuck to his neck.

For some songs he grinded against Shion, and others there was nothing but senseless jumping, and others he couldn’t keep track of what he was doing, and the pumpkin disappeared only to come back and offer him and Safu and Shion drinks that they all accepted, and soon Nezumi knew nothing but that he was happy, he was so incredibly happy.

He didn’t feel any older than he was supposed to be. He felt young and like he wanted to be alive. He felt like he wanted to live forever, like it was a good thing, the best thing. He wanted to tell Shion this. He wanted to tell Shion to stop his lab work. To go back to what he’d been trying to do at sixteen—trying to make himself immortal so he could live as long as Nezumi.

He leaned close to Shion. Shion’s arms were tight around his neck.

“Hey, Your Majesty,” he said in Shion’s ear, and he didn’t know if Shion could hear him because Nezumi couldn’t hear himself.

“Hey, Nezumi,” Shion said, and Nezumi heard this.

“Live forever with me.”

Shion pulled back from him. Strobe lights lit up his face, slick with sweat. Nezumi wanted to lick Shion’s lips, his hairline, the bridge of his nose.

Shion smiled. He nodded. He leaned closer and his hands were on both sides of Nezumi’s face, and he kissed Nezumi, and Nezumi kissed back, and then Shion was gone, and they were just dancing again.

When Nezumi closed his eyes, he could still see the strobe lights dashing across his closed eyelids. He forgot he wanted to die, and it was the first time he’d managed to forget this since he was eight years old.

*

Nezumi had just settled on a stool in the kitchen when Safu stumbled in wearing a t-shirt and what looked like men’s boxer shorts. Her sharply cut bob was disheveled in a way Nezumi had never seen it, and there was a crease in the side of her face that he guessed was from her pillow.

“There’s a pumpkin in my bedroom,” she mumbled, after she’d walked wordlessly to the coffee maker, poured herself a mug of the coffee Nezumi had just brewed, and drank half of it in one gulp.

“There’s a nurse in mine,” Nezumi said.

“How are you up first? You’re never up first.”

“I told the nurse I’d make him breakfast in bed, but then I got in here and made coffee and had to sit down again,” Nezumi said, resting his chin on his palm.

Safu came around the counter and climbed on the stool beside him. She copied his pose, elbow on the counter and chin in her palm, and Nezumi pivoted to look at her.

“What day is it?” she groaned.

“I don’t know. The day after Halloween.”

Safu closed her eyes. “November first. Tuesday. I have work. I’m late for work.”

“Don’t go. You’re rich. You don’t have to work.”

“I don’t work for money. You don’t either. You’ve been working for a century, you’re probably as rich as I am.”

Nezumi dropped his arm to the table and rested his cheek on his elbow to look at Safu sideways. She slid her arm down as well. Rested her cheek on her forearm to look at Nezumi sideways, too.

“You’ve worked at the theater your whole life?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you ever get bored?”

Nezumi’s bangs had fallen over his eyes. He was about to move them, but Safu reached out first, shifted his hair from his forehead with the tip of her finger and tucked it gently behind his ear.

“Thanks.”

“Mm hmm.”

“I don’t get bored at the theater. I get what I want. Every role I’ve played is someone who dies.”

“Really?”

Nezumi nodded against his arm.

“How do you always get those roles?”

“It’s in my contract.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Nezumi smiled lazily. “How’s that for fucked up? I bet I’m a psychoanalyzer’s wet dream.”

“Psychoanalyst,” Safu corrected.

“Mine was better. It sounded like a superhero.”

Safu raised an eyebrow. “If you could have a superpower, what would you choose?”

“Easy. Mortality. You?”

“That’s not a superpower.”

“Sure, it is. Your turn.”

Safu hummed. “Mmm, maybe…telekinesis.”

“What’s that one again?”

“The power to move things with my mind.”

“What would you move with your mind right now?”

Safu smiled. “I’d move my coffee into my mouth.”

“I change my mind, I want that power,” Nezumi said, and Safu laughed.  
Nezumi watched her laugh, then closed his eyes. He could fall asleep right here.

“Are you really one hundred twenty-five years old?” Safu asked, after he almost did fall asleep.

Nezumi didn’t open his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You don’t look like it,” Safu said.

Nezumi opened his eyes. Safu’s face was inches from his. Her eyes were drifting around his face in careful scrutiny, like he was a graph she was analyzing, and then they landed on his eyes and stilled.

“How will you kill yourself?” she asked, her tone the same as when she’d asked Nezumi what superpower he would choose, and so at first, he thought maybe he’d heard incorrectly.

But really, he knew he’d heard her right. He knew Safu by then. She was the kind of person who would ask something like that. And she was the kind of person who could get an answer.

“A gun,” he told her. He’d thought about it extensively. He hadn’t for a long time, not since he’d understood he was too terrified that it might not work and he’d be forced to realize he really was immortal. But since meeting Karan and Shion, since Shion had grown up, since Nezumi had fallen for him, he knew the day would come where he’d have to take the risk, and he’d started planning.

After contemplation, Nezumi had decided a gun would be quickest. He’d waited since he was eight years old to die. When he did it to himself, he wasn’t willing to wait a second more than necessary.

“But maybe I won’t,” Nezumi offered. He didn’t think Safu would tell Shion. Shion would have a conniption if he knew Nezumi had even considered it. Shion did not think like Safu, did not think like Nezumi. Shion was an idealist. He didn’t see reality. He thought he could brew up a potion in his lab that would solve everything. He thought living forever wasn’t that bad in the first place.

“Maybe,” Safu said, but Nezumi knew she didn’t believe him, and he knew this because he and Safu were the same. They were rational. They were realists. They understood that a person could only live for so long before it became unbearable. They understood that a person could only live through so much before a moment longer became impossible.

*

Shion worked long hours, and when he wasn’t working, he was at the lab. But sometimes he wasn’t at work or the lab. And those times, he was with Nezumi.

Nezumi had never lived with anyone before. He had never done laundry with another person beside him, plucking items out of his load and insisting he separate whites and colors. He had never had to share a bathroom with two people, had never been sitting on the couch reading after a shower and had an angry roommate suddenly shove a wad of his own hair in his face after cleaning it from the shower drain because he’d forgotten to. He had never had to share a kitchen, had never had meals with other people, had never thought of meals as a social event at all but rather a necessity of survival.

Nothing was the same, living with Safu and Shion. Just to live with them was strange, unfamiliar, but even more unfamiliar was Shion, the way he would touch Nezumi on the small of his back to move him out of the way when he needed to access a cupboard Nezumi was blocking. The way he would call out for Nezumi from a different part of the apartment, the way Nezumi started hearing his name daily when before years had gone by when Nezumi wouldn’t hear his name at all—everyone in the theater called him Eve, and rarely would Nezumi bother giving his name to the strangers he fucked.

Unfamiliar was the way Shion would heat up Nezumi’s tea when Nezumi was reading and not paying attention, so instead of drinking cold tea he’d forgotten about, it’d always be hot. Unfamiliar was the way Shion would curl up against Nezumi on the couch when Nezumi marked his script books, casual like it was nothing to touch another person when Nezumi had gone centuries touching no one at all. Unfamiliar was the way Shion would stand on his toes to prop his chin on Nezumi’s shoulder when he wanted to see what book Nezumi was considering plucking from a shelf, or the way he would grab Nezumi’s wrist to bring the spoon Nezumi was holding to his lips to taste the batter of whatever Nezumi was baking.

Nezumi had not known that to be in a relationship would be more than someone he had sex with more than once, would be more than someone who wanted to fuck him, would be more than someone who wanted to be fucked. He had not known it would be a constant presence, it would be a loss of his previous life, a replacement with _this_ —a life Nezumi was had not even known was possible, certainly not for himself.

He had not known this was possible—lying on the couch with Shion, Shion’s back against Nezumi’s chest, one of Nezumi’s arms draped over Shion’s waist and the other growing tired of propping his own head up. They were watching some documentary on Shion’s laptop, which sat on the coffee table. The documentary was about some experiment they did in a prison where random people were assigned to be innates and others assigned to be guards. Predictably, the guards went power crazy.

Nezumi slid his hand that was draped over Shion’s waist under Shion’s t-shirt, tapping his fingers on Shion’s stomach. Shion squirmed, pushed his back farther against Nezumi’s chest, nudged Nezumi’s foot with his own.

“That tickles,” he murmured, sounding sleepy.

“Are you falling asleep?”

“No, I’m watching.”

“You sound like you’re falling asleep. Let me guess, at the end all the guards kill the prisoners. There, we know what happened.”

“They don’t kill the prisoners.”

“How do you know?”

“Because unlike you, I’ve heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Everyone has.”

“I haven’t,” Nezumi said, freeing his hand from Shion’s t-shirt and slipping it instead down the front of Shion’s sweats.

“Hey, don’t!” Shion said, laughing and squirming more.

“Why not? You already know what happens,” Nezumi said, ducking his head to Shion’s, which rested in front of him on a pillow on the couch cushion. He bit Shion’s ear, pulled it, felt Shion shifting against him more.

“Safu’s in her room,” Shion murmured, at the same time rolling his hips to push his dick against Nezumi’s hand, which was still under Shion’s sweats but above his briefs.

“Then stop humping my hand,” Nezumi said, after he’d released Shion’s ear. He pressed his lips to the skin behind his ear, then licked the line of skin where Shion’s ear met his head.

Shion’s hand was over Nezumi’s own now, moving Nezumi’s hand faster.

“What about Safu?” Nezumi asked.

“What about her?” Shion asked back.

Nezumi let Shion lift his hand out his sweatpants, then under his briefs instead. Shion was half hard. His skin was warm. He turned his head, so Nezumi kissed him properly.

“Seriously?”

Shion immediately stopped kissing him and tugged at Nezumi’s wrist, but Nezumi left his hand where it was and looked blankly across the living room at Safu.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

“Do you?” she asked back, standing at the end of the hallway with her hands on her hips. “You have your own room for a reason. I should be allowed to walk freely in my own house.”

“Nezumi,” Shion snapped, finally succeeding in yanking Nezumi’s hand out his pants. He sat up, and Nezumi felt cold in the absence of his body.

He stayed lying on the couch, pushing his bangs off his forehead.

“Sorry, Safu,” Shion said, pausing the prison movie and standing from the couch.

“I’m going to put out a jar that you guys have to drop money into every time you fornicate in the general area while I’m home,” Safu muttered, going into the kitchen.

“You’re already rich,” Nezumi said, reaching out to play the movie again.

“Want a snack?” Shion asked him, standing above him.

“Yeah, put your dick in my mouth.”

Shion smiled. “I’ll get you Cheez Its.”

“Your loss,” Nezumi called after him, looking back at the laptop, but when Shion walked away, Nezumi reached out again, lowered the volume of the movie so he could listen to Shion and Safu in the kitchen, knowing what they were going to talk about because it was what Shion always talked about when Safu walked in on them.

“You can kick us out. I know you didn’t bargain on Nezumi living here too,” Shion said.

“You’re so predictable. Is this why you do it? Do you purposefully try to make me walk in on you in hopes that I’ll kick you out?” Safu asked.

“Why would I do that?” Shion asked.

On screen, the fake guards were having the fake prisoners line up against a wall. Nezumi would have been alive for three quarters of a century when this happened. He couldn’t remember hearing about it, but there were long periods of his life that he couldn’t remember. He’d made sure he wouldn’t remember them—he had drunk the years away, done drugs for several decades, then gotten sober just to feel the pain of withdrawal, just to remind himself what pain felt like. He’d spent years alternating—numb and pain and numb and pain.

He’d only just been clean again for a few years when Karan and Shion moved in to his building.

In the kitchen, Safu was saying, “Because then it’s my fault that you have to move out, and Nezumi can’t argue with you. But if you suggest moving out, then it’s your idea, and Nezumi can argue.”

“Who said I want to move out?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll pretend you don’t. Just please stop setting up these traps for me to walk into. If I wanted to see people fucking, I could just watch porn. It’d be a lot less uncomfortable,” Safu sighed.

“I don’t want to move out,” Shion said, his voice louder, but that was because they were back in the living room now. “Move your legs,” he told Nezumi, who lifted them so Shion could sit, and then he rested his legs on Shion’s lap.

Shion held out a box of Cheez Its, and Nezumi reached in, took a handful.

“Safu’s right, isn’t she?” he asked.

“About what?” Shion asked.

Safu sat on the floor, her back against the couch. “Of course I’m right. Is this the Stanford Prison Experiment?”

“You want her to walk in on us having sex. That’s why you don’t put up a fuss,” Nezumi said slowly, thinking back. Shion was cleverer than he looked. He never initiated sex unless they were in their room, but he didn’t fight Nezumi’s initiations when they weren’t in their room outside a weak _Safu’s home_ that both of them knew wasn’t an actual objection.

“Why would I want her to walk in on us?” Shion asked.

“Same reason Safu said.”

“That I want her to kick us out? I don’t want that. I don’t want to move out.”

“Sure, you do,” Nezumi said back, looking again at the movie.

“We live here for free. And I love Safu. I love living here.”

It was pointless arguing with Shion, and Nezumi didn’t want to have this argument now either.

He knew Shion wanted to move out, not because he didn’t like living with Safu, but because he had an image in his head of the perfect future. And that was domestic bliss. That was he and Nezumi living together in a quaint little apartment. That was marriage, maybe a dog, maybe kids. That was growing old together, which obviously could not happen, and Nezumi had no desire to get into any of that now.

When he chewed his Cheez Its, the crunch stopped him from hearing anything that was going on in the documentary, as no one had turned the volume back up from the low murmur Nezumi had lowered it to.

He watched, unhearing, as guards shouted at prisoners. He wondered what they were yelling. Pointless words, whatever they were, because this was all fake anyway. Shion had told him the experiment only lasted six days. Six days of make believe. Six days of pretending before the experimenters realized they’d miscalculated. The risk was too high. People were going to get hurt.

Six days, and they were smart enough to end it.

Nezumi wasn’t sure how long he was going to let himself pretend with Shion before he ended it. It had already been longer than six days. It had been longer than six months. There was no doubt now that someone would get hurt.

Shion let the matter drop. They all crunched their Cheez Its and watched the documentary. Nezumi didn’t need to hear it. He’d never heard about it before, but he knew what happened.

They stopped pretending. They all went home. In the end, for all of them, everything went back to normal, to life as it had been before.

*


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas all!!

Shion’s department at the university had a charity event every year, which was why Nezumi was stuffing a piece of colored fabric into his jacket pocket and getting chastised by Safu for it.

“You can’t just stuff it in there, you have to fold it a certain way.”

“I don’t know how,” Nezumi snapped, yanking it out again.

“Give it to me,” Safu sighed, taking it from him. It was silver, like Nezumi’s tie. The rest of the suit, even the shirt, was black. Safu had been the one to take him shopping in a store in which Nezumi had to stand on a pedestal where he was measured by a man whose hands had lingered too long on Nezumi’s body and Safu was told she was _So lucky_ by the three saleswomen who hovered nearby the entire time they were in the shop.

Nezumi had endured it because he did want to look decent for Shion’s shindig. Safu had attended with him every year prior since Shion had been a professor, and she showed Nezumi pictures from previous years. Everyone looked ridiculously fancy, which Nezumi found strange, as he’d thought professors didn’t get paid much.

“Here, turn to me,” Safu said, so Nezumi did. He was in Safu’s room. Shion was at the lab even though the charity gala started in a half hour.

Safu tucked the folded fabric into his breast pocket, then stood back from him and appraised him.

“Well?” Nezumi asked, tucking his hair behind his ears. Safu had instructed him to wear it down and had woven two small braids, one on each side, to tie in the back, insisting Shion would like it when Nezumi tried to protest.

“You look very dashing.”

Nezumi rolled his shoulders. He wasn’t used to the suit, of which there was quite a number of layers that seemed unnecessary.

“Would I lie to you?” Safu asked.

“I don’t know what you’re capable of,” Nezumi muttered, turned abruptly to leave her room.

Safu followed him into the kitchen, where Nezumi searched the fridge for alcohol.

“It’ll be very boring for you as you’ll have to mingle, but you better behave.”

“I know how to behave. I’ve mingled with idiots before. You are aware I’m a famous actor, right?” Nezumi said, pulling out a bottle of sake, which Safu took from him the moment he closed the fridge.

“They’ll have an open bar. Limit yourself. And these aren’t idiots,” she said, opening the fridge again and returning the sake. “They’re smart. They’re professors.”

Nezumi watched Safu fill a glass of water and hold it out to Nezumi like he was a child. He crossed his arms and didn’t take it. Safu sipped the water herself.

Nezumi suddenly realized what Safu had said, what he should have put together earlier. “Will Shion’s boyfriend be there?” he asked.

“Isn’t that what you are?” Safu asked.

Nezumi opened the fridge again. “The other one.”

“What other one? Oh—Hiroki?”

Nezumi examined the fridge. He wasn’t hungry. He wanted to bake but knew Safu wouldn’t let him when he was wearing this suit, and there was no way he had time to change out of it and then into it again when it had taken so long to put the damn thing on the first place.

“You met him?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” Nezumi repeated, closing the fridge again and opening the freezer. He pulled out a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. It was Shion’s flavor.

“He’ll probably be there.”

“This thing might be fun after all,” Nezumi said, getting a spoon and opening the pint, digging around for the bits of cookie dough even though Shion had yelled at him for eating all the cookie dough out of his last pint.

“Behave,” Safu warned again, and then the front door opened, and Shion came barreling in with his usual commotion.

“Give me five minutes!” he shouted, sprinting into the kitchen out of breath, then sprinting back out, then sprinting back in and pointing at Nezumi. “Don’t eat my cookie dough!” he yelled, then was gone again.

Nezumi excavated another cookie dough chunk. “He didn’t comment,” he said mildly, before freeing the chunk and eating it.

“He didn’t look at you properly,” Safu replied.

“If he doesn’t like it, I’m blaming you.”

“Don’t pretend to be modest, you know what you look like,” Safu said, putting her water glass in the sink and taking the pint from Nezumi. She held out her hand, and he gave her the spoon.

They ate Shion’s cookie dough for the next few minutes. Safu had her turn with the pint and was saying, “Shit, I think they’re all gone,” when Shion walked back into the kitchen, this time dressed much like Nezumi, except his suit was more classic colored—white shirt and black jacket, but he had a red tie and a red fabric square in his pocket. It was folded even more nicely than Safu had folded Nezumi’s, and Nezumi looked down at his own square, frowning.

“I told you not to eat all of my cookie dough,” Shion said, walking toward them.

“It was Safu,” Nezumi said, pointing because Safu was indeed the one with the pint in her hands.

“I only just managed to get this away from him, he put up a fight,” Safu said back.

“You’re both liars,” Shion said, but he was smiling, and then he was stopping in front of Nezumi, looking at him slowly from his feet up.

Nezumi stood still and let himself be looked at, and then Shion reached up, put his fingers around Nezumi’s chin gently and tilted his head to the side.

“Let me see,” he said, so Nezumi allowed his head to be turned. Shion lifted his hand from Nezumi’s chin and touched the braid.

“Safu did it,” Nezumi said, when Shion stopped touching him and Nezumi looked at him again. “And the suit. And the pocket fabric thing.”

Shion kept looking at him, then turned to Safu and hugged her. “Thank you,” he breathed, and Nezumi almost rolled his eyes at the guy’s dramatics. “He’s so beautiful.”

Safu laughed, glancing at Nezumi above Shion’s shoulder. “I barely did anything, he’s always like that.”

Shion released her. “That’s true,” he said, looking at Nezumi again.

“You going to keep staring at me, or can we go? I don’t care either way, really, but it’s your thing.”

“We should go,” Shion said, all the same not moving and instead reaching out, touching Nezumi’s tie.

“We can stay, Your Majesty. It’ll be more fun here.”

“Don’t make me get the jar,” Safu threatened.

“I’d happily give you all my money,” Shion said, touching Nezumi’s bangs now.

Nezumi smiled at Shion’s heavy-lidded gaze. “Safu was telling me to behave, but I’m thinking you’re the one who needs the reminder.”

Shion bit his lip, then took his hands from Nezumi, then took a step back. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go. Want me to sneak you back some of those chocolate-covered strawberries?” he asked Safu.

“Of course,” she said.

“Why aren’t you going again? You’re a professor too, aren’t you?” Nezumi asked.

“Clearly, you don’t pay attention at all when I speak to you. I stopped working for the university hardly a year after Shion and I met. I prefer research over classwork.”

“Come on, we’ll be late,” Shion said, pulling Nezumi’s hand, so Nezumi followed him, turning back to Safu and mouthing _Thanks_ to her over his shoulder.

She smiled at him, nodded, and Nezumi looked away from her. Followed Shion out the apartment, then to the staircase even though they usually took the elevator.

“Why the stairs?” Nezumi asked. Their footsteps were loud against the steps.

“If we’re stuck alone in the elevator I won’t be able to control myself,” Shion replied from a few steps in front of him.

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you with you ogling me, but you know you look very handsome yourself, right?”

Shion glanced over his shoulder, casting his smile at Nezumi briefly. “Thank you.”

Nezumi wasn’t sure if Shion believed him. He wasn’t entirely sure what Shion thought about his appearance. As a teen when his appearance first changed, he’d hated it, Nezumi remembered, though Nezumi couldn’t fathom why. Nezumi had met a lot of people in his life—and he’d seen a large percentage of those people naked—and no one had ever enticed him as much as Shion.

They were soon at the bottom of the stairs, and Shion called an Uber in the lobby, cursing himself for not calling one before. They went outside to wait because it was that hour of late afternoon when the sun was brightest, almost blinding.

On the sidewalk, several people stared at Nezumi, which he was more or less used to, though he was aware that the stares seemed more frequent now, and a group of girls across the street even pointed at him.

“Maybe you don’t age because even nature or unseen forces or whatever is at fault for keeping you from aging knows that to age you, to change your body and current features even in the smallest way, would be a real injustice,” Shion said, after a few minutes of this.

“Please don’t say something so stupid to me again,” Nezumi said back.

“It’s a good theory.”

“Safu warned me your peers are respectable people, so perhaps you should keep that in mind before you say things like that around them. They could fire you for embarrassing their university.”

“We’re not around them yet. So if anything, I should say all this stuff now, get it off my chest before we arrive,” Shion replied easily.

Nezumi squinted at him, and Shion grinned his goofy, childish grin that made it difficult for Nezumi to glare.

The Uber came after another minute, and they climbed in, then were at the gala, which was in the lobby of a fancy hotel Nezumi had only ever seen from the outside. The inside was like an exaggeration of Safu’s apartment building.

“This way,” Shion said, briefly linking his forefinger through Nezumi’s pinky to tug him to the side of the lobby towards a set of swung-open double doors. His fingers left Nezumi’s hand before Nezumi could really register his touch. He followed Shion, glancing at his profile.

“Are your colleagues conservative?”

“Obviously not, or I would not have brought you.”

“Still,” Nezumi said, looking around as they walked into what appeared to be a ballroom. There were circular tables draped in white table clothes around the floor, and against the sides of the vast room were two bars. Waiters drifted around with platters of appetizers.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. But I’m not trying to start a scandal.”

“A lot has changed, which you should know since you witnessed it all, old man. There are other gay professors,” Shion said, and Nezumi raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Hiroki?”

Shion narrowed his eyes. “Behave.”

Nezumi laughed. “That’s what Safu said.”

“Good, I know you’re more likely to listen to Safu than me. Come, let’s get drinks, it’s an open bar.”

Nezumi let Shion lead him to the bar. Nezumi was acutely aware of stares, but he couldn’t be sure if it was because of his appearance or because he was a man.

Shion was right. Nezumi had been alive for much change in the social acceptance of homosexuality in Japan. He had been alive when death wasn’t an unlikely outcome to those who were open and out even when was legal, and even then, Nezumi hadn’t hidden. Nezumi was not afraid of death. He welcomed it, but it never came to him, and then he was alive to witness his risk lessen as people changed, turned accepting.

But not everyone was accepting, and Nezumi knew this too. No matter what changed, or how much, these changes could never affect the entire world.

Soon, colleagues began joining Shion, and Shion made introductions, and Nezumi saw easily that these people did not care about Shion’s sexuality, though many looked at Nezumi curiously, and he suspected he was recognized by some as Eternal Eve, though no one said anything.

That is, until Hiroki appeared. Nezumi had seen him across the banquet hall earlier in the evening, but he didn’t actually approach Shion until he and Nezumi were both on their fourth drink.

Shion had been pacing them. One drink every half hour. Nezumi suspected Shion was aware Nezumi had been an addict at several points in his life. It wasn’t the worst idea to pace.

The mathematics professor Shion had been chatting with had just seen another colleague she wanted to speak to across the hall and left them when Hiroki slipped right into her place, glancing at Shion only briefly before appraising Nezumi.

“You’re him,” he said, after he’d finished his once-over.

“Yes, I remember you too, hello, Hiroki,” Nezumi said, using the politest voice he could and even holding out his hand.

Hiroki didn’t shake it, though he did stare down at it before looking up at Nezumi again. “You’re the actual Eternal Eve. I suspected it that day…but I thought I was being crazy—You don’t know how many times I thought I’ve seen—But it’s obvious now. I mean, look at you.”

“Ah, Hiroki, maybe you’ve had enough to drink,” Shion said, smiling stiffly.

“Admit it,” Hiroki whispered.

Nezumi blinked at him, then glanced at Shion, who looked mortified, which was utterly amusing.

“Hiroki, please,” Shion said, his voice strained.

Nezumi sipped his drink. He didn’t often think about Hiroki, but when he did, he wondered most about his and Shion’s sex life. He found it incredibly intriguing that this bizarre man was the person Shion had given his virginity to. He wanted to know that Hiroki had treated Shion right. He wanted to know if Shion had used his anatomy-inspired moves on Hiroki, if Shion had rendered Hiroki as incapacitated in bed as he did Nezumi.

He wanted to know if Hiroki appreciated Shion’s scars. If Hiroki had made Shion understand that he was gorgeous, breathtaking. If Hiroki had touched Shion carefully, in awe, the way Nezumi did.

It was, Nezumi knew, hypocritical of him to care about Shion’s sex life when Nezumi himself had been with literally countless people before Shion. But sex meant something different to Shion than it did to Nezumi. It was a special thing, an important thing. So the fact that this lunatic had shared this experience with Shion was vastly fascinating and disturbing and amusing and irritating at once.

“Those aren’t contacts,” Hiroki said, when Nezumi didn’t answer him.

“What if Nezumi was Eternal Eve? Would you really want to expose him like this? Wouldn’t that be rude?” Shion asked.

“Are you admitting it? And you’ve known all along, I’m sure,” Hiroki said, looking at Shion.

“I’m being hypothetical,” Shion said tightly.

“How about this,” Nezumi suggested, “I answer your question honestly if you answer one of mine.”

“No, we’re not going to do that,” Shion said quickly, grabbing Nezumi’s upper arm. “Excuse us. It was nice seeing you.”

Nezumi let Shion drag him to a table at the corner of the hall and shove him into a chair before sitting beside him.

“Don’t be so rough, you’re turning me on,” Nezumi said, straightening his tie.

“You know I’m mortified by Hiroki, why do you have to engage? Are you trying to torture me?” Shion demanded.

“He came up to us. I was being polite,” Nezumi reminded.

“Don’t forget I know you, and your innocent act never worked on me even when I was a child,” Shion snapped. He drained his glass, then slumped in his chair, glancing at Nezumi out the corners of his eyes. “What were you going to ask him?”

Nezumi traced the rim of his own glass with his forefinger. “Now you’ll never know.”

Shion looked at him for a long moment, his features softening slowly. “If you have questions about him, you can ask me, you know.”

Nezumi raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“I don’t know why you’d care to know anything about him, but yes, of course. I don’t have any secrets from you.”

_I don’t have any secrets from you._

Nezumi felt as if Shion had punched him and sat back in his chair. He picked up his glass, swirled the ice into the little gin that was left. He didn’t like gin. This was why he was drinking it. It made him drink slower.

He didn’t want to make a mess of himself here, with Shion’s colleagues. Since he’d known Karan and Shion, it’d been easier to drink less, to forget that temptation—except just because it was easier didn’t make it _easy_. He’d spent the years that he’d watched his neighbors age going to bars and bringing home strangers at night. That hadn’t changed.

And now, now that he was with Shion, it was so easy to be sober in moments like the early morning, when he woke to see Shion beside him but was still half asleep and didn’t remember yet that Shion beside him wasn’t a thing that could last.

It was so easy to be sober in small moments, but it was harder than ever to be sober when he thought about the fact that Shion’s birthday had been over four months before, which meant in less than two months he’d have been dating Shion for a year.

A year was too long. He shouldn’t have let it last a year. He had no idea how he was supposed to break up with Shion. He had no idea how he was supposed to ruin both of their lives.

Shion leaned closer to him. “You can’t really care about him. Hiroki? You know I just dated him because he was as close as I could get to you.”

Nezumi put his glass to his lips. Drank the rest and didn’t wince because he hardly noticed the taste of alcohol anymore—even when it was gin, the drink he hated.

“Obviously, I don’t care.”

“You’re upset. I know you.”

“I’m not.”

“You said you’d be honest with me.”

“I said I’d try,” Nezumi snapped, standing up. They’d been fine five minutes before. They were fine now. Nezumi wasn’t going to make a scene at Shion’s banquet.

He sat back down. Pushed his bangs off his forehead. He wanted to tie his hair up. He wanted to take off these clothes. This was all pretend. He wasn’t Shion’s boyfriend. What a stupid idea.

“Sorry,” he said, breathing out slowly. “I’m fine.” He stared into his empty glass. He didn’t want to know how Shion was looking at him. “Can I have the rest of your drink?”

He didn’t think Shion would give it to him, but then Shion’s glass was next to Nezumi’s. Nezumi lifted his hand from his glass, wrapped it around Shion’s, but before he could lift it off the table, Shion’s hand was on his.

“Is this about Hiroki?”

“I don’t give a shit about Hiroki.”

Shion took his hand away. Nezumi downed the rest of Shion’s drink—half a mojito.

“Want another?” Shion asked, when Nezumi set the glass down.

Nezumi looked at him then. There was nothing on Shion’s face but a blank look.

Nezumi licked his lips. “No.”

“I’ll get you another,” Shion said, pushing his chair back as if to stand, and now it was Nezumi who grabbed his arm.

“No. I said I don’t want one.”

“Then what do you want? To leave? You can go.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the blank of Shion’s expression. “You want me to leave?”

“I want you to tell me what’s wrong. But you’re not going to do that. So let’s keep doing what you want. Is that another drink? Or to amuse yourself chatting with Hiroki? What is it?” Shion asked.

“You have to do this here?” Nezumi hissed.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re picking a fight.”

“And you’re hiding from me. You’re always hiding from me,” Shion said, and his voice was sharp but not in a way that was convincing. In a way that made it sound like he was hiding too, but Nezumi knew how to read Shion better than Shion knew how to read him, and Nezumi knew what Shion was hiding.

He was hiding doubt. Which was good. It was good that he was doubtful. Usually, Shion was much too certain for his own good. Usually, Shion was certain about things that he had no right to be certain about, like a future together when there was nothing certain about that at all.

Nezumi nodded at the rest of the banquet hall. “We should get up, mingle. Your colleagues will talk if we just sit here in the corner.”

“I don’t care about them.”

“I do. Come on,” Nezumi said, standing up, extending a hand for Shion, but Shion didn’t take it.

He stood up on his own and walked back to the throng of the banquet hall.

Nezumi followed. He worked to keep his hands out of fists. He wasn’t mad at Shion. He was mad at himself.

He couldn’t have just behaved. For one night. He had countless nights to be pissed about the fact that he couldn’t die. He had infinite nights to hate the life he was forced to live. He didn’t have to do it tonight.

*

They got home after midnight. The Uber drive had been silent, and so was the elevator ride, and so was the walk through the darkened apartment to Shion’s room—Nezumi didn’t need the lights anymore to know where the stacks of books were.

Shion took off his jacket, started pulling off his tie, and Nezumi stepped in front of him, tugged the end of Shion’s tie.

“I thought it’d be more fun it we undressed each other,” he said, leaning closer to kiss Shion’s neck.

Shion leaned away from him. “Not now.”

“Your Majesty—”

“I don’t want to,” Shion said, pushing Nezumi’s hands away, so Nezumi stepped back.

“Okay,” he said, and Shion pulled his tie free sharply, threw it on the floor before glaring at Nezumi.

“This is on you,” he said shortly. “Everything was fine, and then suddenly it wasn’t, and you not telling me what happened—that’s on you, that’s not me. The only thing I can think of is Hiroki, which is so _ridiculous_ —”

“It wasn’t Hiroki,” Nezumi interrupted. “It was you.”

“Me?” Shion asked, incredulous.

Nezumi tugged at his own tie, pulling it loose. He didn’t want to get into this now. He didn’t want to get into this ever. “You said you didn’t keep secrets from me.”

“I don’t!” Shion shouted.

Nezumi held up his hands. “I know. But I do. I keep secrets from you. And when you said that, I started thinking about what I lie to you about, and I—I didn’t mean to ruin your night. I didn’t, Shion, I’m sorry, okay?”

“What do you lie to me about?” Shion asked, his voice incredibly small now, his anger gone already, and Nezumi wished it wasn’t. It was so much easier to be shouted at.

Nezumi shook his head. “Nothing.”

“You just said—”

“This. All of this. You’ve got to know, I know you know. This is temporary, you know that, we’ve talked about that. You know that.”

Shion opened his lips. The crease was between his eyebrows that Nezumi had seen so many times. He’d been the reason for it so many times. Shion’s worry, Shion’s confusion, Shion’s anger, Shion’s disappointment.

“All of this, as in…us?”

“Don’t act confused.”

“But—But things have changed,” Shion said.

“Why? What’s changed them?” Nezumi asked tiredly.

“Ten months have changed them! How can you still be saying this?”

Nezumi was exhausted. He walked away from Shion, sat on the edge of Shion’s bed, and Shion followed, kneeled in front of him on the floor, put his hands on Nezumi’s knees.

“Shion—”

“You love me. Or is that part of the lie?”

“That isn’t a lie.”

“Being in a relationship isn’t what you thought it’d be,” Shion said, his hands sliding up Nezumi’s knees to his thighs until Nezumi reached down, held Shion’s hands in his hands to stop him.

“It’s more than what I thought it’d be.”

“You don’t feel the way do,” Shion said.

“I do. Shion, get up, get off the floor.” 

Shion pulled his hands free from Nezumi when he tried to tug Shion up. “I know you don’t want to watch me age. I know you don’t want me to die first. I know, and I’m fixing—I’ll fix it.”

“Are you drunk? Get up, Shion,” Nezumi said, reaching for his arms.

Shion jerked away from him. “I’m not—I’m not drunk! I’m upset! Sometimes it’s so good, you let it be so good, you let us just be happy, you let us be normal, and then you get like this, you’re unhappy and angry with me as if I’m torturing you. If you’re unhappy, just leave me, I’m not holding you captive, okay? Leave if you want to leave.”

Nezumi slid off the bed so he was on the floor beside Shion, who tried to back away from him, but his back hit a stack of books.

“Stop. Stop it,” Nezumi said. Shion was drunk. Nezumi hadn’t realized it, but he’d forgotten Shion never drank. The guy couldn’t hold his liquor even when he paced himself, one every half hour, although really, after their argument at the gala, he’d stopped pacing. Nezumi had stopped drinking, and he hadn’t thought about the fact that Shion continued.

Shion pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around them and ducked his face between his chest and knees. Nezumi crawled next to him, sat beside him.

“I love you,” Nezumi said. He hadn’t said it before. He hadn’t thought Shion needed to hear it, and he’d been stupid to think that, he realized that now. He knew Shion. Of course Shion needed to hear it.

“You hate me,” Shion said into his knees, like a child, but he wasn’t incorrect.

Nezumi looked at the sprout of Shion’s white hair. “Sure. Yes. I do. I hate everyone who can age. And you especially. You make it harder on me. And I try to hide that from you, but I can’t always manage it.”

Shion lifted his head. His eyes were wet, but his expression was hard. “How long is temporary?”

Nezumi shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to leave.”

“Then don’t.”

“It’ll be okay. We’ll go back to being friends. But I can’t live with you forever. I can’t play house forever. It’ll kill me, Shion.”

“And you want to die, so what’s the problem?” Shion snapped.

Nezumi said nothing.

Shion sighed, rested his forehead on one of his knees. “It’s okay because I’ll figure out how to make you age.”

“You might not be able to.”

Shion closed his eyes. “Just tell me when you’ll do it. On our one-year anniversary?”

Nezumi had already decided. Maybe he’d known it all along. “I think that’s best.”

“That’s best,” Shion repeated.

Nezumi wanted to touch Shion, but he doubted Shion wanted to be touched by him. He wrapped his hands around his own ankles. “I knew you wanted more. I knew you were letting yourself believe it could be more. I should have said something earlier, I should have made sure we were on the same page, but we’d fight, and I like when we’re happy too, you know. I like when we’re normal too.”

Shion looked at him. “This is why Mom hates you.”

Nezumi clenched his jaw. “Yeah.”

“She said you’d do this. I remember. The first time we broke up, when we weren’t even really together, when all we did is fuck once but you let me think it actually meant something and then you broke up with me. She said you’d hurt me.”

Nezumi looked away from him, at the stack of books beside him. “It’s why I broke up with you that first time. I knew she was right. I told you she was right.”

“Don’t defend yourself. You said it was different the second time around.”

“I’m not defending myself.”

“Yes, you are. You’re basically saying, ‘I told you so,’ except you didn’t. When you came back to my apartment after fucking me and dumping me and fucking someone else—remember that? I told you you needed to make up your mind. I told you you couldn’t keep doing this to me. I told you that for me, getting back together meant we were serious and official, and you agreed. I remember that exactly, Nezumi. Do you remember?”

“Yes. I was lying. I was lying to you,” Nezumi said quietly.

“You’re really good at that, you know. You should have kept lying. Now what? I have to just wait for you to break up with me?”

Nezumi squeezed his ankles. Looked down at them to avoid Shion. His throat felt tight. He didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to do this now. He hadn’t had enough time. Ten months? That was nothing to Nezumi. It was nothing.

“I’ll wait,” Shion said softly.

Nezumi swallowed. Made himself speak. “We can do it now if you—”

“I don’t want to break up with you now. But now we feel the same. I love you, and I hate you too.”

Nezumi took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. He felt Shion’s touch on the side of his face, and then Shion’s knuckles were tracing his jaw down to his chin, stopping there, his fingers tipping up Nezumi’s head so Nezumi had to look at him.

“My mom thinks she knows why you’ll break up with me. And I bet Safu knows your plan too, right? So she probably has her own theory. But I know that what you tell yourself, about how hard it will be to watch me age or whatever, I know that’s not why you’re doing this.”

Shion’s fingers left his chin once he’d tilted Nezumi’s head up. He tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ears, one side, then the other. He dropped his hand.

“Why then?” Nezumi asked.

“You want to die, but you won’t kill yourself. You never did, over all the years that have passed. And now, now when you have happiness, you won’t entertain the thought of letting it last. It’s because you feel guilty for surviving when no one else did. You’re punishing yourself.”

“I’m not punishing myself.”

Shion’s gaze slipped around Nezumi’s face slowly. “You’re so good a liar you believe yours lies too,” he said quietly, and then he was standing up, and stepping over Nezumi, and leaving the room.

Nezumi stayed where he was. He wished he was drunk.

*

Shion let things go back to normal, to the extent where Nezumi wondered if the man had forgotten their conversation completely, though that seemed highly unlikely.

The other option was that Shion was just good at pretending. That he was as good an actor as Nezumi. Maybe Nezumi had taught him this since he was a child—how to act, how to lie.

On one hand, Nezumi was relieved. Shion knew what was coming now. He didn’t have to feel as guilty. They both had the same expectations.

But on the other hand, Nezumi didn’t quite trust this act Shion was putting on. He appeared as happy as he had been before. It was suspicious. What man was happy knowing it was only a matter of time before he was dumped?

Time passed, the way it always did, and then it was the day before their one-year anniversary.

It was Shion who told him this, while they were in the grocery store, the pasta aisle.

Nezumi was calculating the sales in his head, trying to figure out whether the three-for-five penne was cheaper than the four-for-six rigatoni.

“Tomorrow’s our anniversary. We should do something,” Shion said.

Nezumi had just picked up a box of rigatoni. He didn’t drop it in the cart. “What do you want to do?”

Shion shrugged. He was reading the nutrition facts on a box of pasta that claimed to be made entirely of chickpeas. “A fancy dinner? That’s what people do, right?” He looked up from the box. “Unless you’re going to break up with me in the morning?” He didn’t seem upset.

“You want to talk about this in the pasta aisle?”

Shion looked at him, then held up the box. “This pasta is made of chickpeas. Let’s get it instead. It’s healthier.”

Nezumi did not know what to make of this change in topic. He put back the rigatoni. “Okay.”

“Next on the list?”

Nezumi looked at the list Safu had written for them. He didn’t read any of the words. “Let’s do dinner. I’ll make a reservation.”

“Sure. I have a night class, so it’ll have to be late.”

“That’s fine.”

“You have a show.”

“I’ll skip it.”

They were at the end of the aisle. Shion turned the cart, wheeled it into the next aisle. Baking supplies. “Soon you’ll be able to go back to the bakery,” he said, stopping in front of the bags of flour.

“We don’t need anything in this aisle,” Nezumi told him.

Shion looked at the bags of flour for another minute before continuing down the aisle. They got the rest of their groceries, checked out in self-check-out, then walked home the two blocks, bags swinging from their fingers.

The weather was bright, the sky full of sun. It would have been a nice day, but it wasn’t. It was the day before their one-year anniversary. There wasn’t anything nice about that.

*

The night before their one-year anniversary, Shion fucked Nezumi hard. It didn’t quite hurt, but it wasn’t the usual kind of fucking where Nezumi was left feeling liquified at the end, where Nezumi knew Shion was doing everything he could to make Nezumi feel incredible.

Nezumi did not feel incredible. He felt punished, and he was glad for this. He wanted Shion to fuck him even harder. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to break right in half. He wanted to be dead before he had a chance to ruin Shion.

But it was too late for that. And then Shion was done fucking him, pulled out of him and left the bed immediately. Nezumi heard the shower turn on hardly a minute later, as if Shion was eager to wash Nezumi off of him.

Nezumi stayed where he was, where Shion had left him—breathing hard on his stomach on the bed. He hadn’t climaxed. Shion hadn’t even touched his dick, hadn’t touched him anywhere but his shoulders to push him back down when Nezumi tried to push himself off the bed or roll over. It wasn’t the first time Shion had fucked him from behind, but it was the first time Nezumi suspected he insisted on this position so he didn’t have to look at Nezumi’s face.

Nezumi rolled over carefully and felt Shion’s cum trickling out of him. When he reached for the tissue box on the nightstand, he felt sore from the movement, but this wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t the kind of pain he wanted. It wasn’t sharp enough, it wasn’t serious enough. It wasn’t anything that would last longer than the night.

*


	13. Chapter 13

Nezumi didn’t see Shion in the morning. They’d slept with space between them, and when Nezumi looked at Shion throughout the night, unable to sleep, it was always to see the curve of Shion’s back and nothing else.

Nezumi woke groggy. He couldn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep. He looked at Shion’s clock even though he hated clocks, and it was half past seven. Early still, and while Shion often went to work early, today was Monday. He didn’t have morning classes on Mondays. He’d told Nezumi once that there was no point to those. Students rarely showed up.

Nezumi hauled himself out of bed. Stopped in the bathroom to pee and brush his teeth, then ventured into the kitchen, expecting to see Shion, but there was only Safu, sitting at the counter and drinking coffee and reading a book.

Nezumi went to the coffee maker. Poured himself a mug.

“He left early,” Safu said. Her gaze was still on her book.

“It’s our anniversary,” Nezumi offered. He’d never had that before. An anniversary of any kind. Except the anniversary of the day everyone had died.

“I know. He thinks you’re breaking up with him.”

“I am,” Nezumi said. He sipped his coffee. Safu glanced up from her book.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.

“He’s already accepted it. He doesn’t like it, but he understands.”

Safu hummed and went back to her book. Nezumi knew she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t sure he believed himself either.

*

Nezumi had borrowed Safu’s laptop to Google the most romantic places to eat in Tokyo. He ended up choosing the Ginza Sky Lounge, a rotating restaurant in the middle of Tokyo.

“It’s expensive,” Safu said. She’d been watching Nezumi Google places from over his shoulder.

“I have money,” Nezumi said, scrolling through the website until he saw the number for making reservations. “This place is popular, isn’t it? They probably won’t have a table open.”

“It’s Monday, they might,” Safu said.

Nezumi called. They were booked. He shook his head at Safu while he was still on the phone.

“Tell them you’re Eternal Eve,” she whispered.

The host was asking Nezumi if he’d like to make a reservation on a later date. The next availability was in two months.

“It needs to be tonight,” Nezumi said. He hesitated, then sighed, pushed his fingers through his bangs. “It’s for Eternal Eve.”

“Eternal Eve? Give me one moment to speak to my manager.”

“He’s speaking to a manager,” Nezumi said, shifting the phone to tell Safu.

“It must be nice to be you,” Safu said.

“It’s not,” Nezumi replied, and then the host was back on the phone.

“Sir? We will have a table for you and your guest. What time?”

“It’d be late, around midnight. Shouldn’t you confirm I’m not lying?” Nezumi asked.

“I’m sure when we see you, that will be confirmation enough. Is there anything else we can do?”

Nezumi pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “It’s for an anniversary. Is there—Is there some kind of romance package or—”

“We will take care of everything. We look forward to seeing you tonight, Eve.”

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, then hung up. He glanced at Safu, who was giving him a look. “Do you have something to say?”

“He doesn’t care about a fancy romantic dinner.”

“I know.” Nezumi shut her laptop. “Thanks for letting me use that.”

“You’re overcompensating with some expensive place when he’s never cared about that, that’s not what he wants. He wants—”

“I know what he wants!” Nezumi shouted.

Safu stepped back from him, and Nezumi’s hands unraveled from fists.

“Sorry,” Safu said quietly.

“Why? None of this is your fault,” Nezumi replied. He left the kitchen and went to Shion’s room, slamming the door behind him, then got out the duffel bag he’d used to bring his clothes here that he’d stuffed into Shion’s closet.

He opened it on the bed, went to Shion’s dresser, opened the drawers that were his and looked down at his clothes. When he’d first unpacked, he’d stuffed all his clothes in one drawer, and Shion had come home, seen this, and rearranged Nezumi’s clothes so that they took up three drawers, refusing to listen to Nezumi’s protests that they fit perfectly in one.

_Half the drawers are yours, half are mine. You have to use all of yours. I emptied three, and you have to use all of them._

Stubborn and stupid. Nezumi slammed the drawers shut without emptying them. He wanted to shout.

He didn’t shout. He opened the drawers again, slowly this time, and carefully took out one item of clothing at a time. He filled his duffel bag. He’d take it to his apartment before dinner with Shion, so afterward, he’d have no excuse to stay another night.

*

Nezumi met Shion outside the lab. It was almost midnight.

“How was your day?” he asked Shion, once they got into the Uber Nezumi had called.

“Good,” Shion said, looking out the window.

“Do you want to know where we’re going?”

“Sure, tell me,” Shion said blankly.

Nezumi clenched and unclenched his fists. Shion had every right to be mad, and Nezumi didn’t. He knew that. He kept his anger out of his voice. “That spinning restaurant. Ginza something.”

“Fancy,” Shion said.

Nezumi leaned back in his seat and tipped his head against the headrest. The rest of the car ride was silent.

They were dropped off and had to take an elevator up to the restaurant itself, and before Nezumi could even give his name to the woman at the host stand, she was smiling at him.

“Eternal Eve. It is you. Your table is ready, this way please.”

“You gave your name as Eternal Eve?” Shion asked, the first thing he’d said since _Fancy._

“It was the only way to get the reservation last minute.”

All of the tables in the restaurant were window-side, as was the table the hostess led them to, but this one was different from the others in that it was covered in pink and gold rose petals.

A bottle of champagne sat in the center in a bucket of ice. A stem rose lay on each of their place settings, a pink one on one stack of plates, a gold one on the other.

“Please enjoy your dinner. Happy anniversary to the both of you, the waitress will be right with you.”

“Wow,” Shion said, when the hostess left.

“It’s a lot. Sorry. Pink or gold?”

Shion sat in the seat in front of the gold rose. He picked it up off his plate, twirled it in fingers, then set it beside his place settings.

Nezumi sat across from him. He watched Shion look out the window. Tokyo was lit up as it always was at night. Nezumi had seen countless Tokyo nights. He knew he’d see countless more. He didn’t bother looking out the window.

“It’s nice here,” Shion said quietly. The night lights reflected on his profile, on his hair.

“Your Majesty.”

Shion didn’t look away from the window, but Nezumi could tell from the shift of his profile that his eyebrows creased.

The waitress came to drop off menus and take their drink orders. She opened the champagne from the center of the table and poured it in their flutes, and Shion drank his all at once, then poured himself another. Nezumi didn’t touch his own.

“These prices are insane,” Shion said, looking at the menu.

“Don’t worry about the prices.”

“I didn’t know you were rich. Which I guess is stupid of me. You’ve been working for a long time, and you never spend any of your money. You don’t do anything. You have all the time in the world, and you could travel, you could see the world, or invent things, or get countless degrees, but you don’t do anything. People would kill for the time you have, and you just waste it.” Shion said all this to his menu, his tone unchanged from the flat that it had been all night.

Nezumi picked up his rose from his plate. There were thorns on the stem still. He pressed the pad of his thumb into one.

“And if you were me? What would you do with all your time?” Nezumi asked, replacing the rose on his plate.

“I wouldn’t live any differently than I do now. I’d work. I’d do my research. And I’d let myself love. I’d let myself be as happy as possible.”

“And after you outlive your mother? And Safu? And all your colleagues? And all your students? And me? Because if I’m in this alternate world of yours, then I’m you, right? So I get to be the one that dies. And then? You’d, what, start over? How many times would you do it? How many people would you be able to love and lose until you became like me?”

Shion said nothing.

Nezumi rubbed his temples. “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want you to feel bad. None of this is on you.”

“Because it’s all your fault,” Shion said quietly.

“Yes. It is.”

Shion looked out the window again. He was twenty-four years old, and he thought he knew about heartbreak. About hurt. Maybe he did. Maybe Nezumi had taught him that too.

The waitress came back, and Nezumi hadn’t looked at the menu, so he just ordered what Shion got. They didn’t speak as they waited for their food, and Nezumi was fine with that. Shion ate the bread that came free in the center of the table and looked out the window at the city spinning around them, and Nezumi looked at him.

When their food came—some kind of French food that Nezumi couldn’t name even when it was in front of him—Shion thanked the waitress, and his voice cracked.

The waitress nodded at them and left. Shion breathed deeply, wiped his hands over his eyes.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Nezumi’s chest tightened. “Don’t apologize.”

Shion stood up abruptly and walked quickly from the table.

Nezumi sat still. His skin felt hot. His heartbeat seemed to shake his entire chest. He looked out the window for the first time, tried to give a shit about the spinning city and didn’t.

He stood up. He wasn’t sure where the bathroom was and walked around the restaurant, which was deserted. The website said they closed at ten, but the guy on the phone hadn’t said no to his midnight reservation, and Nezumi knew that was because he was Eternal Eve. He got special treatment for living forever. As if there was something special in that, incredible in that.

“Can I help you, Eve?” It was his waitress, suddenly beside him.

“Bathroom?” Nezumi asked, and she pointed.

There was a chance Shion was not in the bathroom. There was a chance he’d simply left. But Nezumi had to check, and indeed, after he pushed open the door, he could hear the sound of sobbing.

He realized he hadn’t heard Shion cry since he was a kid, and even that had only been once. Nezumi had found him crying in the stock closet of the bakery when he’d gone to check what was taking the kid so long getting more cupcake liners. He could hear Shion crying inside the closet when he stood outside the door, and the sound shocked him, had him considering getting Karan from the front, as she’d definitely be more equipped to deal with it or just ignoring the crying altogether and walking away, but then there was Shion’s tiny voice saying, _Nezumi?_

Nezumi opened the closet door. Went in, closed the door behind him, and sat on the floor with his back against the door. Shion sat on the floor too, back against the opposite wall of the closet, knees to his chest. His face was wet.

“How’d you know it was me, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked, instead of asking why Shion was crying.

“Your boots,” Shion whimpered, pointing, and Nezumi turned. Shion was pointing to the crack at the bottom of the door. “I saw the shadows of them. If it was Mom, she’d have come in immediately when she heard me crying. But you just stood there. You were thinking about turning away, pretending you hadn’t heard me.”

Shion said all of this like it was fact, not speculation, and Nezumi didn’t correct him. There was nothing to correct.

“I didn’t know what I would say to you,” Nezumi admitted. “I’ve never comforted a crying kid before.” This was a lie. He used to comfort his sister if she cried, even when he was the one who’d made her cry, like after he’d stolen her chocolate bar once.

“You could ask why I’m upset,” Shion suggested.

“Why are you upset?” Nezumi asked.

Shion sniffed. “I don’t have friends,” he finally said.

He was in seventh grade, but he was only nine years old when the rest of the kids around him were thirteen. The price of being a genius.

“I thought I was your friend,” Nezumi said.

“You don’t count.”

“That’s rude. Why not?”

“You’re not in school,” Shion said, after seeming to think about it for a moment.

“Okay, I’ll enroll then. There, problem solved.”

“You can’t just enroll. You’re an adult. You already did seventh grade.”

“I never did seventh grade,” Nezumi told him. “I never did any grade after third.”

Shion stared at him as if he’d said something insane. “That’s not possible,” he finally said.

Nezumi uncrossed his legs. Slid across the floor until he was squeezed next to Shion. He spread his legs in front of him, and Shion did the same. Shion’s were short. His shoes came only to Nezumi’s knees.

“It is possible. When I was eight, my parents died. So there was no one to make me go to school anymore. I wasn’t a smart kid like you, so I didn’t like school, so I just stopped going.”

“Your whole family died, right?” Shion asked, after saying nothing for a long time.

“That’s right.”

“Where did you live? An orphanage?”

Nezumi looked at his legs and Shion’s stretched out next to each other on the floor. He couldn’t remember being as young as Shion was. It had been so long ago, but sometimes he forgot he was ever a child, that there was ever a time when he was helpless and needed others to take care of him.

“I lived on the street for a little while,” Nezumi said.

“You were a homeless person?”

“Not for long. Soon I’d done enough odd jobs to save enough money to get a place to live.”

Shion tapped the toes of his sneakers together once. “Did you have friends?” he asked, and Nezumi could tell the kid was looking up at him even though Nezumi himself stared straight ahead, at the door of the closet.

“No.”

“Not even one?”

Nezumi turned to look at him then. Shion’s eyes were wide the way they always were, and wet too, but he was no longer crying. “Not even one,” he confirmed. His loneliness felt like a vague thing, something from the past, something he could barely remember even though it had carved into him for a century, even though it should not have been so easy to shake, so easy to forget.

“But now you do,” Shion said.

“If you count as my friend, then I count as yours. Even if I’m not at your school.”

“But don’t you want a friend your own age?” Shion asked.

 _There is no one my own age,_ Nezumi thought, but he didn’t say it. “What about you? Does it bother you that I’m an old man?”

“No. You’re the coolest person I know. Maybe in all of Japan.”

“Then what’s all this protesting for? We’re friends, deal with it.”

Shion grinned, that happy grin of his, so easy to conjure even when he’d just been sobbing. “Okay. I’ll deal with it,” he said, then laughed at his own stupid joke.

Nezumi shook his head, then bumped Shion’s shoulder with his own. “Are you going to get up now? We’ve got cupcakes to make.”

Shion had scrambled up, then held out his hand for Nezumi to take, so Nezumi took it and let the kid think he was strong enough to pull Nezumi up. It’d been remarkably easy to cheer the kid up, and Nezumi found himself thinking about his little sister again, trying to remember if he’d been as good with her as he was with Shion. It was the first time in a long time he’d tried to remember anything from so long ago.

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi was not in the storage closet of Karan’s bakery, but in the bathroom of a revolving restaurant. He stood in front of a closed stall, and then the door of it swung open, and there was Shion, his face wet.

“You were standing there for a good five minutes,” Shion said. “I could see your boots beneath the door.”

Nezumi looked at him. Everything in him hurt. “I didn’t know what to say to you,” he finally managed.

Shion pushed his palms against his eyes. “Then why’d you come in here at all?” He walked past Nezumi to the sinks and washed his hands at one. Nezumi looked at his back and the reflection of his face in the mirror.

“Do you remember when I found you crying in that storage closet? When you were just a kid?”

“That was a long time ago,” Shion said, hitting the soap dispenser with his palm.

“Not really.”

“I’m not a kid anymore. A stupid joke from you won’t comfort me anymore. Nothing is the same.”

“I didn’t tell you a stupid joke to comfort you.”

Shion slammed the faucet closed but didn’t turn around. He glared into the mirror, and Nezumi knew he was looking at Nezumi’s reflection just as Nezumi looked at his. “I don’t remember what you said. Who cares? I don’t want the past, Nezumi. I don’t want to reminisce with you.”

“You were nine, I think. Sobbing inside the bakery’s storage closet. And I stood outside the closet listening to you, and I would have walked away. I didn’t know how to comfort a kid. I didn’t know how to comfort anyone.”

Shion’s gaze dropped from his. He looked down into the sink. “I don’t care, Nezumi. I don’t care if I changed your life or whatever, don’t tell me that bullshit as if it can make me feel better. I get it, I get why you’re breaking up with me, I understand, but I’m still allowed to be upset about it, okay?”

Nezumi didn’t want to be the reason Shion was upset. He wanted to be the one to make him grin his stupid grins. He wanted to be that more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life—a life in which he hadn’t bothered wanting anything, a life in which wanting was irrelevant to him, wanting had no place.

“Yeah, okay,” Nezumi said, stepping back from Shion. “I’ll wait at the table.”

Shion’s nodded at the sink. Nezumi wanted to walk up to him, touch him, any part of him—his hands, his shoulder, his hair, his lips.

Instead, he left the bathroom. Went to their table, still covered in petals. Neither one of them had touched their food.

Nezumi cut into his, some kind of meat, and ate methodically. He didn’t taste anything and had finished half of it by the time Shion was sitting across from him again.

“Is it good?” he asked, nodding at Nezumi’s plate.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said.

Shion drank another full glass of champagne, then started eating. He ate quickly, as if he wanted to be done, as if he wanted to leave the restaurant as soon as possible, as if he was eager for the night to end when Nezumi wanted it to stretch out into forever, into the rest of his life, eternity.

He didn’t care if they fought. He didn’t care if Shion wouldn’t speak to him, would hardly look at him. He didn’t care if they were both angry or upset. He didn’t care that he didn’t know what to say to Shion. He didn’t care that it was unbearable to know he was hurting Shion.

It was better than nothing. It was better than every moment he’d spent in his life without Shion, waiting for him.

*

The rest of the night was silent, and then they were outside the building. Shion was tipsy and leaned against Nezumi as he waited for the Uber Nezumi had called for him.

The Uber came too quickly.

“That’s you,” Nezumi told Shion.

“Me?” he asked. 

“I’ll call another one for myself once you leave.”

“Oh.”

Nezumi led Shion to the Uber, opened the door for him, confirmed with the driver that this was the right car, then turned to Shion.

“Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Why?”

“So I know you get home safe.”

Shion just looked at Nezumi in confusion, then got into the car.

Nezumi held the door open still. Leaned in. Didn’t want to give Shion a last kiss and wanted nothing more all at once.

“I’ll see you. Next time you come to your mother’s bakery, I’ll be there, and I’ll see you there,” he said, instead of kissing Shion.

Shion said nothing. Just looked at Nezumi until Nezumi couldn’t take it. He leaned out the car and closed the door gently. He wanted to tell the Uber driver to drive safely. It was late, some odd hour of the morning, and Nezumi wanted to make sure Shion got home okay.

But the driver drove off before Nezumi could say anything. Nezumi watched the back of the car until he couldn’t see it, and then he pulled out his phone and called another Uber for himself.

It wouldn’t come for another seventeen minutes. Nezumi didn’t care. He had time to kill. All he had was time.

*

Nezumi woke in his apartment for the first time in a year—no, the second, he and Shion had spent the night here on Shion’s twenty-fourth birthday when Nezumi had gotten plastered.

There was nothing strange in waking up in this apartment. Nezumi had woken up in this apartment countless times. He would wake up in this apartment countless times more.

He got up, showered, dressed, didn’t bother with breakfast and went straight to the bakery, which was open and busy—Nezumi guessed, looking at the crowd, that it was around nine in the morning.

Karan was not at the counter. Mio was. She had a customer but still looked up at Nezumi as he walked in. He nodded at her and went to the kitchen.

Karan was sifting confectioner’s sugar onto what looked like a pound cake.

“Karan,” Nezumi said, to announce himself.

He’d considered texting her the night before that he’d broken up with her son, but when he’d tried to type the words he couldn’t.

“Did he tell you?” Nezumi asked her, staying by the door when Karan said nothing.

“Tell me what?” Karan asked.

Nezumi had been certain Shion would have told her. He figured he’d have told her months before, when they’d argued after the gala, when Nezumi had told Shion that their relationship was temporary.

Nezumi tried to say, _We broke up_ , but he couldn’t, so instead he said, “I only took a year of his life. That’s not so bad, right?” His voice came out small and weak. Nezumi felt the need to catch his breath and didn’t know why.

“Oh, hon,” Karan said, and Nezumi’s knees gave out, and he couldn’t explain that either, but then he was on his knees on the floor and he covered his face with his hands so Karan wouldn’t see him cry because he couldn’t remember the last person who’d seen him cry, maybe it was his real mother after he’d fallen and cut his elbow and thought that was a pain worth crying over, maybe it was something so stupid as that.

The sound of his sobs was awful, and he wanted to stop, but he couldn’t. His chest hurt so much he could not breathe. He knew the pain wasn’t just Shion. It was the rest of his life that he’d have to endure from this point on. It was every single second that would come next.

Karan was beside him on the floor, her arms around him, and he moved his hands only because he could bury his face in her shoulder, and she still wouldn’t be able to see him.

Her arms were strong and tight around him, and this was a relief.

“I was happy,” he admitted into her body. “I didn’t know I could be. I didn’t know this whole time I could have been happy. This whole time. I thought that had died with my family. I thought that had been taken from me too, but it hadn’t. It hadn’t.”

Karan held him tighter. Nezumi knew the moment she released him, his body would not be able to hold itself together. He would fall apart, and it would be over, finally, finally over.

It was all he wanted—for it all to be over—but even so, he didn’t want Karan to release him. He understood in that moment that he was scared of death. He was scared to die. He wanted it so badly, and still it terrified him.

What if death was just more time? What if death was nothingness, stretched out and out and never ending? What if death was no different than the way he’d been living?

*


	14. Chapter 14

Nezumi did not think he would see Shion again for at least a month, likely several. But on Wednesday, only two days after their one-year anniversary, the kitchen door opened, and it was not Karan walking in but her son.

Nezumi stopped rolling the top of the flour bag closed to stare at him. He continued staring as Shion walked into the kitchen, washed his hands at the sink, got his apron from the hook, and pulled it over his head.

Shion stared back at Nezumi as he tied the apron around his waist. “You’re staring,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” Nezumi asked. Maybe Shion had come to yell at him. That would make sense. Or to beg for him back. Or to try some new argument to make Nezumi reconsider.

“I came to bake,” Shion said. He sounded very calm, and Nezumi wasn’t sure how he was doing that. Nezumi felt as if his own heart was pressed right against the roof of his mouth.

Because of this, he refrained from speaking until Shion pointed at the bowl in front of him.

“What are you making? How can I help? Or should I start something else?”

Nezumi looked into the bowl to give himself a break from looking at Shion. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he was baking. He wasn’t sure what was in the bowl. Flour. Maybe he’d added sugar. Maybe baking soda. Maybe vanilla extract. How was he supposed to remember with Shion standing right next to him, peering into the bowl too?

“Nezumi?”

“I don’t know,” Nezumi said.

“What?” 

Nezumi swallowed. He had to lie. He was an actor, and he could act. When they saw each other again, it was Shion who was supposed to be flustered and incoherent, and Nezumi was supposed to put up the strong front, show Shion that things could go back to normal and be good, and even though they’d broken up they could still be in each other’s lives the way they had been before all this.

“Muffins,” Nezumi decided.

Shion looked at Nezumi in confusion. “What kind of muffins?”

“Pumpkin.”

“Pumpkin? It’s the end of March. Mom never puts pumpkin muffins on the menu this time of year. Are pumpkins even in season?”

Nezumi stared helplessly into the bowl again. “Blueberry?” he asked. He wanted to kick himself in the face. He refused to look at Shion.

“Blueberry,” Shion repeated slowly.

“Why are you here?” Nezumi asked again, looking at him now, hearing the anger in his own voice now that he hadn’t meant to put there. He hadn’t meant to ask this again. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Everything. It felt like everything.

Shion had a crease between his eyebrows. “I told you. I’m here to bake. I only had morning classes. I always come here Wednesday afternoons.”

“You couldn’t make different plans this week?” Nezumi demanded.

“What? Why?” Shion asked, sounding nothing but confused, as if he didn’t understand, as if he didn’t care, as if he didn’t feel the way Nezumi did—wrong and broken and weak and hurt.

Nezumi wanted to pull it together. He really did. He knew how to be indifferent. He knew how to not give a shit. He knew it, he knew it, he didn’t know why he couldn’t do it now, why it felt impossible to feel anything but raw and exposed.

“Nezumi—”

“I need you to go,” Nezumi managed, his voice tight.

Shion lifted his hand, and Nezumi stepped back. “I thought you wanted things to go back to normal,” Shion said slowly, resting his hand on the counter.

Nezumi hated normal. Normal was loneliness. Normal was surviving. Normal was nothing.

“I can’t yet,” Nezumi whispered, not meaning to whisper, but that was all that came out.

“You did this to us,” Shion said, after a moment, as if Nezumi needed this reminder.

Nezumi’s eyes burned. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. He needed Shion to leave. He looked at Shion’s hand on the counter instead of anything else, and he blinked quickly, but it wasn’t enough.

“I didn’t know you could cry,” Shion said quietly, when Nezumi wiped roughly at his cheek.

“What a stupid thing to say,” Nezumi breathed. He wiped at both eyes and exhaled hard. He’d stopped looking at Shion’s hand on the counter, and then it was on his chest, and Nezumi stepped back but Shion stepped forward, followed him. “Don’t—”

“I just want to feel it,” Shion said, when Nezumi was against the kitchen wall.

Nezumi wrapped his hand around Shion’s wrist but didn’t move Shion’s hand. “Feel what?”

“Your heart. If it’s broken.”

Nezumi shoved Shion’s hand off his chest. “It’s not.”

Shion looked up at him. There was nothing in his expression at all, and Nezumi knew he’d been the one to teach Shion this—how to make himself indifferent, how to not give a shit.

“You can lie better than that,” Shion said, and then he was stepping back from Nezumi and tugging his apron off, balling it on the counter, and leaving the kitchen.

Nezumi turned in time only to see the swing of the kitchen door in his absence. He pressed his palms to his eyes. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t anything.

*

The next day, Nezumi was whisking a half-melted stick of butter to liquify it when Shion walked into the bakery kitchen.

Nezumi dropped the whisk. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” Shion asked coolly.

 _Punish me_ , Nezumi thought, but he said nothing as Shion went to the sink, washed his hands, took his apron from the hook just as he’d done the day before.

“How can I help?” Shion asked, leaning on the counter too close to Nezumi.

“I know you have class now.”

“You don’t even know what time it is,” Shion said. “Should I finish whisking that?”

“You have classes all day Thursday. Go to class.” 

Shion picked up the whisk. Slid the bowl of butter closer to him. Started whisking.

“Listen. I want us to go back to normal. I just need a little space. Give me a week, at least, Shion, come on.”

“You’re not the one allowed to request space. You dumped me. Remember?”

“I remember,” Nezumi said. He was the one who had taught Shion to be sarcastic. To be cruel. To be selfish. He knew he was the one to blame. “I’m asking you as my friend.”

“Why? I’m not trying to pull any moves on you, I’m not doing anything to you. I’ve accepted it. We’re broken up. Fine, good. Now we’re just baking like we always did. Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“Because I can’t breathe around you!” Nezumi shouted—and he didn’t mean to shout, he didn’t.

Shion stopped whisking. The flat expression slipped off his face, but Nezumi couldn’t tell what it was replaced by.

“I know I did this. I know it’s my fault. I know I hurt you. But I hurt myself too, okay? I’m trying to—I’m trying to deal with that—but I can’t with you coming in here every day.”

Shion opened his mouth, but Nezumi didn’t want to let him speak, didn’t think he’d be able to say everything if Shion tried to protest or yell at him more.

“This is all I have, Shion, this bakery is all I have, so I can’t leave here, so I need you to leave. And it’s not fair of me to ask you to do anything, I get that, I’m the bad guy here, but if you could just—if you could just take it a little easier on me—I have no right to ask, I know I don’t, I know I—”

Shion raised his hands. “It’s okay. Nezumi, it’s okay,” he said, voice gentle now, and this was worse, Nezumi felt as if everything was shattering in him at the soft of Shion’s voice.

Nezumi shook his head, exhaled sharply, stepped back. “Don’t—Don’t fucking comfort me—”

“Nezumi—”

“Don’t. Just leave, just leave, I need you to leave—”

Nezumi was crying again when Shion left. Always crying. He couldn’t stop. Shion had broken everything inside him, but Shion hadn’t done anything. It was Nezumi. He remembered now, why he’d spent all his life choosing nothing. He’d do it again. He’d choose nothing over this. He’d choose anything over this.

*

That night, Nezumi got a text, and no one texted him but Shion and occasionally Karan, but it was Safu’s name on his phone screen.

Nezumi was sitting at his kitchen table drinking a bottle of sake. He let go of the bottle to pick up his phone, squint at it, confirm it was Safu’s name before opening the text.

_You can talk to me_

Nezumi took the text to mean that Shion had told Safu about his visits to the bakery. About Nezumi—poor Nezumi, crying Nezumi, pathetic Nezumi. Nezumi knew what Safu was thinking, what she’d say if he did call her to talk.

She’d say it wasn’t just Shion. That this had just opened up everything in Nezumi’s past that he’d closed off, pushed away. That he was broken now because everyone was dead, and breaking up with Shion was only a trigger or some shit, some stupid psychobabble, Nezumi didn’t care and didn’t want to hear it and didn’t know if it was true, but what did that matter?

He just wanted it to end. He flipped his phone over and grabbed the bottle again and chugged the rest of it, then slammed it down, gasping, beside the other empty sake bottle that he’d finished off just ten minutes before.

His head swum. He got up, went to the fridge, took out a third bottle of sake, and drank it standing up, all of it. He tried to walk to his bedroom but didn’t make it a step before he was falling, and he slid down the fridge, then eased himself onto the floor so that he lay on his kitchen tiles.

He closed his eyes. He hoped he wouldn’t wake up.

*

Nezumi woke sore, with a headache. He had no idea where he was, and then he realized he was on his kitchen floor, but there was a pillow below his head and a blanket over his shoulders.

He pushed himself off the floor so that he was sitting and looked around, spotting Karan at his kitchen table only after he’d wiped the crusted sleep from his eyes.

She was not looking at him, but her phone. In her other hand was a mug, and Nezumi watched her sip from it, then place it down on the table.

“Karan?” Nezumi’s voice was crackled and hoarse. He cleared his throat. His head throbbed.

“Good morning, honey. Well, good afternoon,” Karan said, looking at him before getting up from the table and walking around it to crouch in front of Nezumi, who wondered if she was a hallucination.

“How did you get in here?” he managed.

“I made a copy of your key when you moved back here,” she said.

“What? When? Why?” Nezumi rubbed at his eyes. He thought he might still have been drunk.

“Just in case,” Karan said after a moment. She didn’t say in case of what, but Nezumi didn’t need her to.

“Who’s at the bakery?”

“Mio and Shion. You don’t have to worry about the bakery right now.”

Nezumi pushed himself up until he was cross legged. He rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed at his temples, then pushed a hand through his hair, which was out of its ponytail.

“You didn’t have to stay here until I woke up. I would have eventually. I was just drunk.”

“I was worried.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’m not going to do anything. Shion would blame himself.”

“There’s accidental overdose,” Karan said quietly.

“If I haven’t accidentally overdosed by now, it’s not going to happen. My body can take a lot, Karan, trust me. Much worse than three bottles of sake.”

Karan looked down that the floor between them. “Shion’s not the only one who’d blame himself.”

“Don’t be as stupid as your son. You’re better than that,” Nezumi said, reaching up for the counter to pull himself off the floor. He regretted standing the moment he was up. He swayed and let the counter take his whole weight.

Karan stood up too. “And you’re better than this,” she said softly, her hand momentarily resting against Nezumi’s cheek before she left the kitchen, and Nezumi heard from the open and close of the front door that she left his apartment too, likely heading back to the bakery.

Nezumi knew Karan wouldn’t tell Shion anything, but he also knew that Karan never left the bakery when it was open. Shion would be wondering where she went, and he was a smart man. He’d know it had to do with Nezumi. Maybe he was thinking about Nezumi right now. Maybe he always thought about Nezumi even when he didn’t want to. Maybe he couldn’t help it either.

*

Shion stopped coming to the bakery when Nezumi was there, but a week after their one-year anniversary, Safu visited.

“Who let you back here?” Nezumi asked her, pausing in cutting the stems off of strawberries when Safu walked through the swinging door.

She came right up to him and hugged him, which was so startling Nezumi couldn’t think of how to react, so he just stood still until she released him. “I talked to Karan. I told her you’d been teaching me how to bake, and that I missed it now, and that I have some free time and would be really grateful if I could come around a few hours a week and work under your tutelage here. She agreed.”

“So you lied to her so you could force therapy sessions on me because Shion told you I’ve become a basket case,” Nezumi said flatly.

“I didn’t lie to her. I do miss baking, and I want to learn more. And I miss you too,” Safu said while washing her hands, her back to Nezumi. “And Shion didn’t tell me anything.”

“Now that’s a lie,” Nezumi said.

Nezumi waited for Safu to argue, but she didn’t. He picked up his knife again, went back to cutting stems.

“What are we making?” Safu asked, beside him now.

Nezumi knew it was pointless to argue with Safu. “Put on an apron, you can use Shion’s. On that hook over there. I’m making strawberry jam for jelly-filled donuts, you can make the dough.”

Safu was not great at baking—she didn’t understand why Nezumi didn’t use exact measurements, why he relied on instinct rather than precise numbers when baking was, according to her, the most scientific of the culinary arts. But she was good at following directions, and she was good company—she didn’t have the incessant need to talk that Shion did, and the silence they shared was relaxing, comforting. Familiar.

They didn’t speak until the donut dough was finished and the donuts were shaped and stuffed and ready to be fried. They stood in front of the stove, waiting for the oil to heat enough.

“How is he?” Nezumi asked, keeping his gaze on the oil even though he knew it’d be another few minutes until it was ready.

“He’s working a lot. I don’t see him much,” Safu said.

“But he’s taking care of himself? Sometimes he forgets to eat, he gets so caught up in his work. And he won’t sleep either unless you pry student essays out of his hands. And he doesn’t—”

“Nezumi. I know him too. I’m not going to let him starve himself or otherwise fall into physical states of despair. You don’t need to worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“I can see that.”

“And his lab work. On me?” Nezumi asked.

“You know it’s not possible, right? The more I consult on Shion’s experiment results, the more that’s clear.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you letting Shion do this?” Safu asked.

“Do you think I could stop him?”

“You don’t have to give him so many DNA samples.”

Nezumi picked up a donut. Lowered it into the oil, and it immediately began to sizzle. He picked up two more, placed them in carefully. A drop of hot oil splattered on his wrist, and he winced out of reflex but was used to it, hardly felt the burn of his skin.

“He’s like a parasite. His confidence in himself gets in my head. Look, I know it’s impossible, but the guy really believes in himself. And he’s smart, if anyone could do it—” Nezumi cut himself off.

Safu said nothing. Nezumi fished out the finished donuts with the strainer spoon. He lowered more in. Watched them sizzle.

“I’m smart too,” Safu finally said, voice almost too quiet to make it above the sound of the frying dough. “And my judgment isn’t compromised the way his is. He thinks it’s possible because he wants it to be, because he loves you, because he wants to make you happy. Not because it’s actually possible. Not because there’s any real chance.”

Nezumi turned down the heat below the pot. He wanted to stick his hand into the oil. Fry his skin. He wanted to feel nothing but the burn of it, so intense, so horrifying there’d be room for nothing else.

*

Time passed because that was what it did. Nezumi found that the days were longer and couldn’t remember what he’d done before dating Shion filled up all the time he had. He worked at the bakery as much as he could and went to his plays, and in between he started drinking Nyquil, and when his body got used to that, he took pills of melatonin. He hated being awake. Time passed so slowly when he was awake. Sleep ate up the time Nezumi didn’t want.

He did not see Shion again the first week after they broke up, and then it was a month, and then it was longer and Nezumi didn’t keep track because he never did. 

And then it was another birthday. Nezumi wasn’t sure how this was possible, and when Karan told him, he thought she must have been joking, some kind of bizarre joke that he didn’t understand.

“I don’t get it,” he told her, zipping closed the cash bag that he took to the bank every week, filled with that week’s profit.

Karan was beside him at the register, crumpling the empty wrapper of a roll of quarters in her hand.

“He asked me if you’d be there,” she said slowly.

“Be where?” Nezumi asked, bewildered, as she’d just told him, _Shion’s twenty-fifth birthday is tomorrow,_ which was crazy and incorrect. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. He’d just had a birthday. Who had so many birthdays?

“Here, honey. He’s coming here, like he always does on his birthday.”

“It was just his birthday,” Nezumi said slowly, thinking maybe Karan wasn’t lying, she was just confused. She was getting older. Maybe her mind was going. Maybe she had dementia. “Do you remember? It was a fiasco. His twenty-fourth. Half a year before—before I moved out of his place. Remember?”

“I remember,” Karan said gently.

Nezumi felt his nails digging into the cloth of the cash bag. “So this is a joke.”

“It’s not a joke. You broke up six months ago, sweetheart.”

“We didn’t.”

“Nezumi.”

“You’re full of shit,” Nezumi said shortly. He wouldn’t hear any more of this. He wouldn’t entertain this stupid conversation. He wanted no part of it. The days were so long. They were agonizingly long. There was no way so many had passed, there was no way it had been half a year, there was no way Shion was already twenty-five, the same age Nezumi had listed on all his IDs.

He knew a guy at the theater who helped him. Got him a new official ID each year with a new birthyear so that he was always twenty-five. His birthday was January first on his IDs. It was easy to keep track of.

“I think it’s a good idea if you’re not here. I’m not saying you can’t be. It’s okay if you are, if you want to be, if you want to see him again. But maybe you should have them do your make-up at the theater,” Karan said, something hesitant in her voice, and Nezumi thought maybe she was having a stroke.

“You’re saying nonsense. Do you realize that?” he asked, concerned now. Shion had taught him once the signs to know if someone was having a stroke. He didn’t know why Shion had taught him this, but now it was helpful. Maybe Shion had known this was coming. Maybe strokes ran in his family, and he’d wanted Nezumi to be prepared for when Karan had one.

Nezumi tried to remember. Something about the mouth, he thought.

“Come with me,” Karan said, her mouth looking normal enough, but Nezumi wasn’t sure really, and then she had taken the cash bag out of his hand, placed it on the counter, taken Nezumi’s hand in hers, and pulled him out from behind the counter.

He followed her, trying to think of other stroke indicators. Something about the arm. A pain?

“Does your arm hurt?” Nezumi asked her.

Karan didn’t reply. She had led him to the bathroom door, and then was pushing it open, pulling Nezumi in behind her.

“Karan, what—”

“Look,” Karan said, pointing to the mirror, and for a moment Nezumi thought she knew she was having a stroke and was trying to point out the indicators on her face, but that wouldn’t make sense, she’d have just told him. “Look at yourself, Nezumi,” she said, more insistent, so Nezumi looked in the mirror.

His face was not unfamiliar, though he understood that it would have been to Karan. She’d never seen him like this. She probably thought this was his worst, but it wasn’t. He could be much, much worse.

Nezumi barely looked at the sallow skin, the dark bags pulling at his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. His chapped lips. His greasy hair. His eyes wide because there was so little flesh in his face they looked larger in comparison.

He hadn’t known it’d gotten this bad. He didn’t bother with mirrors. He didn’t need to see his own face refusing to age day after day. His make-up girl took care of his face before shows, and she hadn’t said anything, but someone else in the cast had probably explained it to her— _That’s just Eternal Eve. Every once in a while, he loses his beauty. Drugs, probably. He’ll snap out of it soon. It happens in cycles. Nothing to worry about._

It wasn’t drugs this time, not that it hadn’t been often enough before. This time it was just sleeping pills, but anyone could take those, they were over the counter, Nezumi had done worse.

“I’m not on drugs,” he told his reflection, but really he was telling Karan.

“Have you done drugs before?”

“Yes.”

“When? Which ones?”

Nezumi shrugged. He stopped looking at his reflection. It was of no interest to him. “All of them. Before I knew you.”

“But not now?”

“No. I don’t have a reason to lie to you. Just sleeping pills, I need help to sleep. Everyone does that.”

“Not everyone does this,” Karan said, her voice shaking. “I’ve watched this happening to you, and I’ve said nothing. I searched your apartment, and I couldn’t find anything, but I should have said something, every day I wanted to say something, but I thought you’d get upset with me.”

“You searched my apartment?” Nezumi asked, then shook his head, pushed his bangs off his forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Listen, don’t make yourself the guilty party here. If I was doing drugs, nothing you said to me could have stopped me, don’t worry.”

“How can I not worry?” Karan nearly yelled.

“What do you think is going to happen? You think I’ll die? From sleeping pills? I’ve shot up cocaine, heroin, meth, for months at a time, for years, for decades, and I’m still here. Shion said something once, that my body was less prone to diseases or something, it’s probably the same with drug overdoses, who knows? The point is you don’t have to worry. There’s no point to it. Nothing can happen to me, Karan. Nothing.”

Karan’s expression was pained, as if she was the one who had survived everything that was supposed to kill her. “I’m not worried that you’ll die, Nezumi. There are worse things, and you seem insistent on experiencing all of those worse things.”

Nezumi laughed. “Are you kidding me? You think I want this? You think I want any of this?”

Karan didn’t argue. She looked at the mirror again, so Nezumi did too. He remembered looking at Shion in the mirror in the Ginza Sky Lounge, that fancy fucking restaurant. He remembered Shion’s expression, just like his mother’s. They were both disappointed in him. As if he should have done better, and he didn’t know how, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. What did they want from him?

“So you’ll be at Shion’s birthday tomorrow?” Karan asked.

“Does he want me there?”

“I asked. He said he doesn’t know.”

Nezumi looked at Karan’s face in the mirror instead of his own, but really, hers wasn’t any more of a relief. She looked older than him. Soon, Shion would too. Nezumi looked back at his own face. He looked sick, but he still looked young. He looked like someone that was dying but was too young to die, and none of that was true.

“If I come, I’ll get my make-up girl to take care of this,” he said.

“I wish you would just take care of yourself,” Karan said quietly.

Nezumi didn’t bother lying to her, telling her that he would. Already, he was looking forward to being home, taking pills, falling asleep. All Nezumi wanted to do with his time was get rid of it, and nothing ate time like sleep did.

*


	15. Chapter 15

Nezumi baked Shion’s cake for the first time in years. He spent the day on it, icing an elaborate pattern with every color icing they had so that by the time Karan and Mio had finished closing the bakery and Karan popped into the kitchen to tell Nezumi Shion was on his way, Nezumi’s wrist was sore.

“Oh, wow,” Karan said, walking up to the counter.

“He wants me to get a tattoo. Has he told you that?” Nezumi asked, not looking up from the cake, his wrist smarting every time he squeezed the icing bag to make another petal.

“Of an aster?” Karan asked.

Nezumi nodded. He’d baked the cake in the largest pan Karan had and covered the entirety with iced asters, miniscule ones, each small as a 1-yen coin. They were pink and blue and green and red and purple and orange and white and yellow, and he’d mixed icing too so some petals came out in swirls of color. He was almost done. There was a patch of uncovered cake the size of his thumb left. He could fit three asters into it, four maybe.

“This is the most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen, Nezumi,” Karan said.

Nezumi picked up the icing bag of blue icing. His hand shook, and he flexed his fingers in a fist, then iced another flower.

“Will you get the tattoo?”

“Of course not,” Nezumi said, choosing the red icing next. They were not a particularly exciting flower, but in abundance, with icing petals overlapping each other, there was something nice about them. Nezumi wondered why Karan had chosen to name her son after them. They had a simple beauty, and Shion was anything but simple. 

“Does he think you’ll forget him?” Karan asked, sounding as if she was talking more to herself than to Nezumi, so Nezumi didn’t bother replying.

Shion could be stupid, but even he had to know Nezumi wouldn’t forget him. Nezumi could live forever, and that wouldn’t be enough time to forget him.

Nezumi heard the ding of the entrance door just as he picked up the purple icing bag for the last flower.

“I’ll bring this out when it’s done,” he told Karan. He’d taken a break from the cake to stop at the theater two hours before, found the make-up girl practicing a zombie look on one of his castmates.

_Can I borrow you?_ he’d asked her, and she’d followed him into his dressing room where he’d sat down, and they’d both looked at his face in the mirror.

_What do you want to look like?_ she’d asked him.

_I need to look like I’m okay,_ he’d told her.

She didn’t ask any more questions. She got to work. Nezumi kept his eyes closed until she finished. It took her an hour, and then she told him to open his eyes, and he looked like himself, like normal. Like a person who wasn’t desperate to die.

He finished the last aster on the cake. Stepped back from it and looked at it and took off his apron. He could hear Shion’s voice from the front room, the first time he’d heard Shion’s voice in half a year.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Honey, happy birthday! You look so handsome, did you get a haircut? And Safu, always a treat to see you.”

“Hi, Karan. Thanks for having me.”

“Is he here?”

“He’s finishing your cake, he’ll be out in a second.”

“Maybe I’ll just go back there, see if he needs help,” Shion said, so Nezumi knew he was coming.

He hung up his apron. Washed his hands. Tucked his bangs behind his ears. Slid the cake to the edge of the counter and didn’t pick it up because the kitchen door swung open, and there was Shion, looking older in small ways Nezumi couldn’t pinpoint, but he knew they were there. He wore jeans and a white button down Nezumi was certain he himself had unbuttoned countless times.

“Happy birthday, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said.

“Hi,” Shion said, at the same time. He lifted a hand, rubbed the back of his neck. He stayed in the doorway and was looking at Nezumi as if Nezumi was the one who’d changed and he was cataloging all the differences, but Nezumi was the same, and there was nothing to notice.

Nezumi let him look, and then Shion’s eyes fell to the cake, and he lifted a hand to his lips.

“I was going to take this up front. Hold the door open for me?”

“Oh, Nezumi,” Shion breathed.

“It’s just a cake,” Nezumi reminded. To hear Shion say his name sent heat through his body. A bizarre, dramatic reaction. He tried to ignore it.

Shion walked through the doorway. Closer. Kept coming closer, and then he was right in front of Nezumi, but he was still looking at the cake, which was good. Nezumi needed a break from Shion’s scrutiny, even though that made no sense, even though he’d had a break for six months.

“How long did this take you?” Shion asked, bending down, looking at the cake at eye level.

“I didn’t time it. It’s just a cake,” he said again.

Shion looked up at him, still crouched at eye level with the cake. Nezumi hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this man, just being looked at by him, just being in the same room as him, just being able to talk to him, to hear him talk. In the past six months, he hadn’t missed Shion at all compared to the way he missed Shion now, when the man was right in front of him.

“I didn’t think I’d see you today,” Shion said.

“Surprise surprise,” Nezumi said back. He didn’t even want to kiss Shion. He just wanted to touch him. Anywhere was fine. His hair. His wrist. His neck. His lower back. His palm. Anywhere, he would have given anything to touch him anywhere.

Shion stood up again. Reached out, and then he touched Nezumi’s cheek, like maybe he had the same impulse. It was just the pad of his finger drawing a line, and Nezumi guessed he had a smudge of flour on him, or icing, but then Shion looked at his fingertip and said—

“You’re wearing make-up.”

Nezumi swallowed. “I came from a play.” He didn’t know how Shion could tell. After the make-up girl had finished with him, Nezumi had examined his face in the mirror for five minutes. He hadn’t been able to tell. How did Shion know his face better than he did?

“No, you didn’t. I know your schedule,” Shion said.

Nezumi didn’t know what to say to this, so he shrugged, tilted his head toward the front room. “We should join the others.”

“Why?” Shion asked.

Nezumi forgot how much he hated this man. Forgot how much he loved him. No, he hadn’t forgotten. He’d just taken sleeping pills so there’d been no time to remember.

“Do you remember what I told you the first day you kissed me? In the bug exhibit at the museum?” Shion asked, like this was an acceptable thing to ask.

“Do you have to do this?” Nezumi asked him, pushing his fingers through his bangs and taking a step back from Shion.

“I told you how it feels to be without you. And how it feels to be around you. How it’s like I’m not awake until I see you again. I forgot about that until now, until I walked into this kitchen and saw you and you said happy birthday to me, until I heard your voice. I forgot the way I could feel, the capacity I have for feeling. I forgot how much I could feel until one minute ago, walking in here.” 

Nezumi shook his head. “Did you plan this? I thought we were going to figure out how to get along like we used to. That’s what we have to do, Shion, you can’t be saying this shit to me.”

“I didn’t plan this,” Shion said. He looked so serious, and Nezumi had forgotten this about him, his propensity to be completely dense, clueless, shameless, to say every single thought in his head out loud without any desire to filter himself, without any inclination to understand when it was better for everyone that he just keep quiet, that he just lie, that he just pretend.

“I don’t want to leave this kitchen,” Shion said, still going, still not learning. “I want time to stop. I don’t want to go join my mom and Safu. I want to stay here with you. You can say anything to me. You can do anything. You can be mad or you can act indifferent or you can lie about why you’re wearing make-up—I can’t imagine why, and I’m so curious, but you can lie to me, I don’t care. Let’s just stay here.”

“Time doesn’t stop,” Nezumi said slowly. “That’s not how it works. Your mother or Safu will come back to check on us eventually. Any minute.”

“I forgot how beautiful you are. How could I forget that?” Shion asked, not seeming to have heard Nezumi at all.

“Don’t you think you should try to act like a normal person for once?” Nezumi asked him, exasperated, overwhelmed, needing Shion to stop staying every single one of his thoughts.

“I was going to. I had a plan. For when I saw you, if I saw you, I had a script of what I’d say to you, all the things that were acceptable to say.”

“Okay. Good. Do that. What’s on the script?”

“I’d ask about your plays,” Shion said.

“Go on. Ask me.”

“How are your plays?”

Nezumi tried not to notice the twitch of Shion’s lips, tried not to remember how it felt to kiss Shion’s smiles, to feel them press against the underside of his neck. “They’re good. We’re doing an adaptation of _The Titanic._ ”

“You’re Jack.”

“Have you seen it?” Nezumi asked. He wondered if Shion was doing what his mother had done, sneaking into his plays. He’d looked for Shion before and after his shows, trying to catch him sneaking in and out. That white hair was hard to disguise, and Nezumi had never seen him.

“No. But Jack is the main character.”

“Rose is the main character.”

“Jack dies. You only take roles that die.”

“Safu told you that?” Nezumi asked, surprised by this without knowing why. It wasn’t like that conversation had been confidential, it wasn’t like it’d been therapy of any sort.

Shion looked surprised too. “Safu? No. You’ve always played those roles. Since I’ve known you. It’s obvious, I noticed when I was a kid.”

“You never said anything.”

“What was there to say? You want to die, so you take roles that let you. So you’re Jack. I bet you’re a really good Jack. He’s all charm. But I can’t remember, I haven’t seen that movie in ages. Is he the one that’s realistic, or is he the one that’s romantic?”

“Shion. I don’t want to talk about Jack with you.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing. I want to go to the front where your mom is waiting, and Safu. We’ll do the cake, sing happy birthday, you’ll blow out candles, we’ll eat, and you’ll go home.”

“And you? What will you do? Will you go to a bar? Get drunk? Sleep with someone?” Shion didn’t sound angry or accusing. He only sounded curious.

“No. I’m taking a break from drinking. I’ll go home too.”

“You’re taking a break from drinking. Are you also taking a break from having sex with strangers?”

“Shion.”

“I don’t care. Really, I don’t, I know none of those people matter to you. I’m asking because I want to know about you. I want to know about your life. I haven’t seen you in six months. Why did I do that to myself? Being around you is my favorite thing in the world, even when you’re mad at me.”

Nezumi sighed. “I’m not mad at you. I find it incredibly stupid that you’re saying all of this, that’s all. You could have common sense for once.”

“If I had common sense, what would I do?” Shion asked. He seemed content to have this conversation, completely unfazed, happy even, while Nezumi wanted to itch himself out of his skin just being near the guy. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to handle this.

“You’d let us take the cake up front so we can get through tonight.”

“I’m not trying to get through tonight. I want it to last forever. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

“That’s on you, you could have come to the bakery earlier. I needed space when we first broke up, but I wasn’t asking for six months of it. You knew that.”

“I miss you more when I’m around you,” Shion said simply, and Nezumi hated him for having the same thoughts, the same feelings as himself.

Nezumi hated him for being able to share these feelings as if they were nothing, as if they weren’t clogging his throat or tightening his chest. As if they weren’t confusing or wrong but simple and understandable. As if he wasn’t ashamed of them and didn’t mind them.

“Want to sneak out?” Shion asked.

“What?”

“We could go out the back door. We could go somewhere. A bar, or if you don’t want to drink, a coffee shop. Let’s go to a coffee shop. Or that ice cream place we used to go.”

“What are you talking about?” Nezumi asked.

“You’re right, they’ll come back here, they’ll come check on us. I just want to be alone with you a little longer.”

“What makes you think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s my birthday. This is what I want. I want to be alone with you. I don’t care where we are or what we do or what we talk about.”

It was not a good idea. But it was what Nezumi wanted too.

“I have an idea,” Nezumi offered, and Shion smiled, and Nezumi wondered why he’d broken up with this man, why he’d taken away his right to see this smile whenever he wanted.

*

“I don’t want to ruin it. It’s so beautiful,” Shion said, his fork hovering above the cake.

“You already took a picture. Many pictures,” Nezumi reminded, not knowing why he needed to remind Shion, as it was only a minute before, right after they’d settled on the ledge of the roof of Nezumi’s and Karan’s apartment building, that Shion had pulled out his phone and opened the bakery box and started photographing his cake.

“They have those cake shows, you know? Those cake decorating contests that are on TV? Safu loves them. You should be in one of them. You’d win,” Shion said, finally dipping his fork into the side of the cake.

“What’s the prize for those things?”

Shion licked his lips. “Money, probably. God, Nezumi, this is so amazing.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Nezumi replied, dipping the fork he’d snagged from the kitchen for himself into the other side of the cake.

They sat on the edge of the rooftop. The ledge was thick, so they had room to sit cross-legged without worrying about falling over. Nezumi used to come up here decades ago, but then he got tired of the view. It was so easy to get tired of everything with as much time as Nezumi had.

The cake, which Nezumi and Shion had put into one of Karan’s cake boxes in order to sneak out, sat between them.

“The lights are still on in the theater,” Shion said.

Nezumi had been watching Shion lick icing off his fork. He turned to look across the street, where the theater sat below them. It was night, the sky dark, and the windows of the theater glowed.

“I have rehearsal now.”

“What scene?”

“Tonight? The dance, I think. When Jack brings Rose down to the servants’ quarters where all the workers drink at the end of the day.”

“Who’s Rose?”

“Koharu.”

“I like her.”

“Yeah, she’s good,” Nezumi agreed.

“This cake is really good, Nezumi. It’s crazy how good this is. You could be famous,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked at him again. He had blue icing at the corner of his lips and was shoving another forkful of cake into his mouth.

“I am famous,” Nezumi said.

Shion nodded, his mouth full, and waved his fork. Nezumi waited for him to chew and swallow. “You could be more famous,” he said.

“Yeah, that sounds like something I’d want.” 

“I know, it’s your dream. You could be the most famous man in the world. Not only immortal, but able to make the most beautiful and delicious cakes on the planet,” Shion said, stretching his arms wide and laughing. His teeth were colored from the icing.

“An admirable legacy,” Nezumi said, and Shion pointed at his lips.

“I knew I could make you smile.” 

Nezumi swatted his hand away. “You ruined it.”

Shion just grinned wider, then ate more cake. “Catch up, you’ve eaten less, your dent is smaller,” he said, so Nezumi gouged another forkful from his side.

They ate cake and talked about harmless topics, like how Shion’s classes were going this semester, and about some research paper he was writing for publication. The paper was on telomeres, and Nezumi remembered the word, remembered that it had something to do with his own DNA, but Shion didn’t mention Nezumi’s DNA, so Nezumi didn’t ask. He knew there was no progress. Safu kept him updated.

Soon, half the cake was gone, the sides of it gouged away from their slow forkfuls. It was a large cake, ideally for eight to twelve people. Shion set his fork in the cake box and leaned back on the palms of his hands.

“I’m not done, so don’t close the box. I’m just taking a break.”

“Sure,” Nezumi said, setting his fork down as well.

Shion had his face tilted up to the sky. Nezumi looked up too. No stars as usual. He wondered what Shion was looking at.

“Let’s stay up here forever,” Shion said.

“If that was your plan, you should have rationed the cake better.”

“Damn. You’re right. We can order delivery.”

“I don’t think they deliver to roofs. And you don’t have a phone charger, and there’s no outlets up here anyway. Your phone would die soon, and how would you order food then?”

Shion smiled a lopsided grin and tilted his head to look at Nezumi. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

“Either that, or the holes in your plan are glaringly obvious.”

“They’re only obvious if you’re looking for them,” Shion replied. “New plan. We stay up here as long as we can manage before starvation occurs. A person can live thirty days without food.”

“We don’t have water up here.”

“It’ll rain at some point.”

“So we’ve got thirty days,” Nezumi said.

“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll be sick of each other by then anyway, so it’s a good time period.”

“You think you’ll be sick of me after thirty days?” Nezumi asked.

“Maybe sooner.”

Nezumi laughed. He realized only afterward that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. It was probably six months ago, and he hated that that felt like a long time because it wasn’t. He’d gone years without laughing before Karan and Shion moved into his building. He’d gone decades. What a waste, to be so miserable.

“I think I have space again. In my stomach,” Shion said, peering at the cake.

“Don’t make yourself sick, Your Majesty.”

“I wish I had something to call you.”

Nezumi glanced at him. Shion had picked up his fork and was taking another forkful of cake.

“What does that mean?” he asked, and Shion looked at him with his fork halfway to his mouth.

“You call me ‘Your Majesty.’ It’s like a pet name. But I think you might hit me if I called you ‘babe’ or ‘hon’ or anything. And it’d feel weird for me, too. But I want to call you something.”

“Your Majesty is not a pet name.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s an insult,” Nezumi said.

Shion smiled and ate his cake, smiling even while he chewed. “Okay,” he said, with his mouth full. “What’s an insult I can use for you?”

“There’s none. I’m perfect. There’s nothing to insult me with,” Nezumi said, and Shion laughed. Nezumi loved to hear this laugh more than he cared about hearing his own.

“So I’ll have to settle on a pet name. You can choose. Honey bunches? Sweetie? Mouse? Mouse is a good one. Wait, no, I got it—Nezumi-kun!” Shion said, laughing harder.

“Try calling me that, see what happens,” Nezumi said.

Shion grinned at him. “Nezumi-kun,” he said, his voice baby-like and stretching out the _kun_ into _kuuuun_ , “live up here forever with me.”

“I’ll throw you over this ledge.”

“Nezumi-kun! You’re so mean!”

Nezumi couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He doubled over, and his stomach hurt from all the cake, but it was a good hurt. When he couldn’t breathe from laughing, it was a good breathlessness.

“Careful, you’ll fall off the ledge,” Shion said, his hand on Nezumi’s arm.

Nezumi couldn’t stop laughing. He covered his face and tried to catch his breath and couldn’t.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, his hand on Nezumi’s other arm to now, and both hands slid up Nezumi’s shaking shoulders. “Hey.”

Nezumi managed to control himself after another few seconds. He dropped his hands from his face. His eyes watered from his laughter. He breathed hard to catch his breath. Shion lifted his hands from Nezumi’s shoulders to wipe beneath Nezumi’s eyes with his thumbs.

“You okay?”

“I think I have a sugar high,” Nezumi gasped.

Shion kept rubbing his face, and Nezumi didn’t understand until Shion pulled his hands away.

“The make-up,” Shion said, rubbing his fingers together.

“Oh.” Nezumi lifted his hand to one of his eyes, covered half his face with his palm.

“Why are you wearing it?”

“I don’t look great.”

“What do you look like?”

Nezumi shrugged. “Sick.”

“You said you weren’t drinking.”

“I’m not.”

Shion looked at him carefully. Nezumi dropped his hand from his face. He wondered how much make-up Shion had wiped off, what Shion could see.

“Drugs?” Shion asked after a moment.

Nezumi shook his head. “Not really. Over-the-counter stuff. Nothing illegal.”

“You’ve done illegal drugs?”

Nezumi smiled wanly. “I just had this conversation with your mother.”

“And?”

Nezumi waved a hand. “It was before. Before I knew you.”

“Hard drugs? Like opioids?”

“You don’t have to sound concerned. Clearly, I’m fine,” Nezumi reminded. He picked up his fork and took another forkful of cake to give himself something to do other than look at Shion’s worried expression.

“Just pills, or did you do needle stuff?”

“Needle stuff? You sound like an elderly. I’m the old man here, remember?”

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi sighed. “Yeah, everything. Needle stuff included.”

Shion’s eyebrows creased. He reached out, grabbed Nezumi’s wrist and stretched out his arm, and before Nezumi could protest, Shion was pushing the sleeve of Nezumi’s sweater above his elbow. “That’s what I thought. I’ve drawn your blood, I’ve seen the inside of your elbows before. You don’t have track marks.”

“They faded.”

“If your track marks faded, why hasn’t your burn faded?” Shion asked, releasing Nezumi’s wrist. “You got that burn long before you had track marks, right? You got that burn over a century ago. But it looks like something that happened to you twenty years ago, tops.”

“I don’t know, Shion. You’re the medical expert, not me.”

Shion looked at him for a moment, then ate another forkful of cake. He looked out over the edge of the building while he chewed. “I think it’s because you got the burn before you stopped aging. Somehow, that made a difference. The burn became permanent. But every other scar you get goes away.”

“Maybe,” Nezumi said, shrugging.

“This is important.” 

“Why? Your research isn’t going anywhere. Safu told me. And that’s fine, Shion, you should stop trying. This is how it is. I’ve accepted it. You need to accept it too now.”

Nezumi expected Shion to argue, but he didn’t. He chewed on the tongs of his fork and kept looking across the street.

“Stop chewing that, you’ll break your teeth,” Nezumi finally said.

“What was it like?”

“What?”

Shion looked at him. “Drugs. Heroin? Meth? Crack? Which ones did you do?”

“All of them at different points.”

“And?”

Nezumi thought about it for a moment. “They gave me a break from feeling like myself. From knowing I’m going to live forever and from feeling it, all the years I’ve lived and all the years that are left. Sometimes I need a break.”

“But you haven’t done anything since I’ve known you. Since we moved in when I was six.”

“That’s right,” Nezumi said.

“And now? What over-the-counter stuff are you talking about?”

“Mostly sleeping pills,” Nezumi said. He didn’t see the point of lying.

“Will you do hard drugs again?”

“Probably. But I won’t let you see me when I’m on them.”

Shion pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He rested his chin on his knees. “I wish you cared about yourself as much as you care about me,” he said quietly.

Nezumi shifted until he laid on his back on the ledge. He searched for stars in the black sky even though he knew he’d never find them. “I don’t care about anything the way I care about you,” he said because Shion had asked him to try to be honest, and Nezumi wanted to, he did.

Shion said nothing. Nezumi closed his eyes. He could hear when Shion shifted, and then he heard Shion’s footsteps, and then he felt Shion beside him.

He opened his eyes to watch Shion settle on the ledge beside him, lying down too, half his body over half of Nezumi’s because the ledge was wide, but not wide enough for both of them to lie beside each other without overlap.

“Don’t push me off the ledge, Your Majesty,” Nezumi told him.

Shion’s cheek was on his chest. His arm was around Nezumi’s waist, and his leg fell over Nezumi’s, and half his body covered half of Nezumi’s.

“Don’t pretend you’re scared of dying,” Shion said back.

“I’m not. I’m scared you’ll jump over the ledge after me.”

Shion curled closer to Nezumi. Nezumi lifted his hand, wove his fingers through the strands of his hair. He closed his eyes again.

“We can’t fall asleep up here,” Nezumi said, even though he felt suddenly sleepy, his sugar crash hitting him all at once. “Your mother will worry.”

“I won’t fall asleep,” Shion murmured, sounding half asleep despite his words.

Nezumi could feel the rise and fall of Shion’s chest against him. The weight of Shion’s body draped over half his own increased with each breath. Nezumi felt grounded and warm. He felt full, and maybe it was the cake, but maybe it was the man he loved, and the feeling of him again after too long.

When sleep started slipping into Nezumi’s bones, he didn’t try to stop it.

*

Nezumi opened his eyes to the sunrise. He squinted at the deep purple of it and to the edge of the sky the slips of orange. Half his body was cold and the other half hot. He lifted his head just an inch, saw that Shion was still asleep over him. He rested his head back, watched as the slips of orange took over the purple until there was no purple left, and the orange had turned yellow and then white, and then Shion stirred and made a sleepy sound.

Nezumi didn’t move. While Shion shifted his weight, different parts of Nezumi’s body filled with pins and needles. He concentrated on the feeling of these pinpricks and watched the sky until Shion’s face blocked his vision of it.

“Hi,” Shion said.

“Morning, Your Majesty.”

Shion’s smile was sleepy and half-formed. “We fell asleep out here.”

“Very insightful observation.”

Shion wiped at his chin. There was dried drool on it, which meant there was probably dried drool on Nezumi’s shirt. 

“It’s been a long time since you were the first thing I saw when I woke up,” Shion said, when he’d finished with his chin.

“Yeah,” Nezumi agreed. He lifted his hand, the one without pins and needles, to run it through Shion’s hair, which was sticking up on one side.

“Have you been up long?”

“No.”

“Are you mad at me for falling asleep?”

“I fell asleep too.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“Do I seem mad?” Nezumi asked.

Shion bit his lip then shook his head. “You seem…content,” he said.

Nezumi said nothing. He wasn’t sure if any of this was real. Behind Shion, the sky had turned a bright white and haloed his head. He didn’t look entirely human.

“I miss you,” Shion said softly.

“You said that yesterday,” Nezumi reminded.

“I miss you more today.”

Nezumi touched the scar on Shion’s cheek. “I miss you more today,” he repeated slowly, just to try the words for himself, and they felt right, they felt correct.

Shion lowered back down, pressed his face into Nezumi’s chest. “Don’t say things like that to me,” he whispered, words muffled, and Nezumi could feel the heat of them through the fabric of his shirt.

“You said it first.”

Shion mumbled something that was too muffled for Nezumi to make out. Nezumi didn’t mind. He strung his fingers back in Shion’s hair and looked at the sky again. At some point, the white had started shifting into blue.

Nezumi closed his eyes again, but he couldn’t fall back asleep. He didn’t want to. He wanted to feel each of Shion’s breaths seeping into the fabric of his shirt, he wanted to feel each time Shion shifted, he wanted to feel the weight of him. He wanted to hear the small muffled sounds he made, sleepy murmurs that let Nezumi know he’d fallen into a half sleep the way he did. Nezumi knew he was having vivid dreams in his half sleep. Shion used to tell him about them, nonsensical stories that meant nothing, but Shion still tried to pull out meaning, still tried to make Nezumi decipher them too.

It’d been a long time, since Nezumi had to decipher any of Shion’s dreams. He hadn’t thought it was something he’d miss. He hadn’t thought he’d miss all the things he did, stupid things, like filling two mugs with tea instead of one, like fighting in the mornings about who would use the shower first, like pulling on the wrong pair of jeans before realizing the legs were too short, like being warm in bed without a blanket because there was a body instead, like having someone to talk to, about anything, about nothing, stupid things, fights, words that meant nothing at all.

Nezumi hadn’t thought he’d miss the feeling of pins and needles in his arm, or the stale smell of Shion’s morning breath. He hadn’t thought he’d miss the discomfort of holding in a sneeze so he wouldn’t wake Shion. He hadn’t thought he’d miss growing tired of lying in one position but not moving anyway so he wouldn’t wake Shion.

But he missed it all now, now that he had it again and he knew he wouldn’t have it for long. He missed it so much he could scream, but he didn’t, because Shion had fallen asleep again, and Nezumi didn’t want to wake him.

*

When Shion woke again, the sky was a happy blue. Shion woke by burrowing closer into Nezumi’s body and making a moaning sound into his chest.

“I didn’t catch that,” Nezumi told him.

Shion lifted his head again. “I can’t believe I fell asleep again.”

“That’s fine.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“Then don’t.”

“We have to move at some point,” Shion argued, wiping again at his lips.

“Why?”

Shion narrowed his eyes, but in a sleepy way, not quite as much suspicion there as there’d normally be. “Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?” Nezumi asked.

“So…complacent. And good natured.”

“Is that what I’m being?”

“You’re being—You’re being—You’re not mad,” Shion finally said, sitting up fully now, and the absence of him was jarring on Nezumi’s body, which turned immediately cold and filled with static.

Nezumi moved gingerly, wincing as he sat up. He rolled his shoulders and felt sore all over.

“Why do you want me to be mad so much?”

“I don’t!” Shion said, throwing up his hands. “But it’s unnerving that you’re not. You’re supposed to be worried about my mom, who’s probably worried about me. And you’re supposed to be all upset that you’re giving me the wrong impression, that I’ll start thinking this means we can be in a relationship again, or that I’ll start pining after you again, or something. And you’re supposed to be mad at yourself for letting us sleep here, for letting my mom worry and letting me feel all those things I just said.”

“That’s a lot of things to be so early in the morning. Do I have to be all that, or can you pick one thing?” Nezumi asked, feeling his lips twitch.

Shion pointed at him. “See, this, this is weird. You’re calm and joking and—and—and happy,” he said, in a way that sounded like an accusation.

Nezumi pulled free his ponytail and ran his fingers through his hair. “Is that not allowed?” he asked, when Shion continued to look at him accusingly.

“You don’t have to ask me for permission, it’s you who’s usually the one stopping yourself from being happy.”

“Well, I’m giving myself permission now,” Nezumi said, collecting his hair again until Shion suddenly reached out and pulled on his sleeve.

“Don’t,” he said.

Nezumi lowered his arms, and Shion took his hand away. “Don’t what?”

Shion touched Nezumi’s hair. “Don’t put it back up. It’s wavy now, I like it. Can you leave it down?” he asked.

Nezumi squinted, but he knew better than to try to understand this man. “Sure, Your Majesty, if that’s what you want,” he finally said.

Shion tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ear, then untucked it, then took his hands back and wrapped one in the other in his lap. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“For what?” Nezumi asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Nezumi had nothing to say to this. He stretched his arms, then stood up and stretched his whole body, glancing behind his shoulder to see Shion watching him.

“I’m sore,” he explained. “Old men shouldn’t be sleeping on cement roof ledges.”

Shion was chewing on his lip again, but then he released it. “This feels like a memory that I’ll always remember. Sneaking out of the bakery, coming up to this roof with you, eating cake and talking and falling asleep on the ledge of our apartment building. And I’m so worried.”

“Worried about what?” Nezumi asked, sitting on the ledge again beside Shion, who sat with his legs crossed.

Shion’s eyebrows were creased together. “I’m worried it won’t be a good memory.”

Nezumi tilted his head. “I think it’s been good so far.”

“It has. It’s been—It’s been incredible.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It’s not over yet. We’re still on the roof. The memory has to end, and I think it’s going to end with a fight.”

“I’m not planning on fighting with you. Are you going to fight with me?”

Shion uncrossed his legs and pressed his palms into his knees. “Nezumi,” he said, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Shion,” Nezumi said, nudging Shion’s shoulder with his own.

The crease between Shion’s eyes deepened the longer he looked at Nezumi. Nezumi lifted his hand and pressed the crease with his finger until Shion held his wrist with both hands and pulled Nezumi’s hand down into his lap.

Shion looked down at Nezumi’s hand, so Nezumi did too. Watched Shion open his fingers one at a time, then touch his palm, then curl Nezumi’s fingers back into a loose fist that he held in both his hands.

“You’re being so…”

“So what?” Nezumi asked.

Shion was looking at him now. “Would you kiss me if I asked you to?”

Shion still held Nezumi’s hand in his. Nezumi didn’t move it. He wanted Shion to touch him. Nezumi had been touched by countless people, but no one touched him like Shion did, with so much care, like Nezumi was fragile, like he was breakable, like he was temporary.

Nezumi nodded.

Shion licked his lips. Took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Will you kiss me?” he asked.

Nezumi leaned forward. Shion let go of his hand, and then Shion’s fingers were around Nezumi’s face, tilting his chin, and Nezumi let him, and then Nezumi kissed him. He parted his lips and Shion’s were parted too, but it wasn’t a deep kiss. Nezumi just wanted to touch him gently. He was scared he’d wake up if they kissed too hard, or too long, so he didn’t. He kissed Shion softly and only for a few seconds, and then he pulled away again, and Shion’s hands fell from his face.

“Did you forget you broke up with me six months ago?” Shion asked quietly, like he didn’t even want to speak the words aloud.

“I didn’t forget,” Nezumi told him.

“You’re acting like you forgot.”

“I didn’t.”

Shion touched his own lips just briefly, then he stood up. He glanced at the cake box on the ledge, then at Nezumi again, then picked up his phone, which was sitting beside the cake box.

“My mom called and texted,” he said.

“Of course,” Nezumi said.

Shion tapped his phone, then put it to his ear. He looked at Nezumi, who looked back. He didn’t want to stop looking at Shion. Shion was right. This was a memory he’d always remember. He wanted to remember everything from it.

“Mom, hi,” Shion said, then quickly, “I’m fine, I’m safe, everything’s fine, I’m sorry I disappeared last night, but everything’s fine, I promise.”

There was a pause, during which Nezumi looked for his own phone. It was on the floor of the roof below the ledge. He picked it up, pressed the home button, saw missed calls from Karan and Safu, and then texts—two from Karan, one from Safu.

“Yes, I’m with him,” Shion was saying, while Nezumi opened the texts.

From Safu— _Tell Shion to call Karan._

From Karan— _Where are you two?_ and then _You’re both okay, right? Just let me know that please._

“We’re at Nezumi’s,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked up at him.

“She’ll know we’re not there, she has my key,” Nezumi said, probably at the same time Karan said something similar over the phone, as Shion’s face fell.

“We’re at my place,” he said next, but Nezumi bet Karan had asked Safu if Shion ever came home, and his suspicions were confirmed when Shion’s hand wove in his hair and tightened.

He looked at Nezumi, and Nezumi raised his eyebrows.

“I’m safe, we’re safe, we’re not anywhere dangerous or in danger, okay? Just trust me. I’ll talk to you later, I’m going to hang up now, Mom, but don’t worry about us.”

Nezumi watched Shion grimace until he finally took the phone from his ear and presumably hung up on his mother. He groaned and dropped into a crouch, his hand still in his hair and the other loose around his phone.

“Does she think I’ve kidnapped you or that you’ve kidnapped me?” Nezumi asked.

“I think her biggest fear is that we’ve eloped,” Shion moaned.

Nezumi laughed.

“Stop being so carefree, it’s freaking me out,” Shion snapped.

“What should I be instead?” Nezumi asked, resting his palms on the ledge behind him and leaning back.

Shion stood up, walked closer to him, then crouched again right in front of him. Nezumi leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, to be closer to him.

Shion reached up, wove his fingers through Nezumi’s hair at the roots. “What happens now?”

“We live on this roof until we starve to death in thirty days,” Nezumi said.

Shion shook his head. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“We can leave the roof. You can come back and live with me. No one has to starve to death.”

“We can’t do that,” Nezumi said back.

“Why not?” Shion asked. “It’s better than your plan.” 

“My plan is fair. We both die in thirty days. We both die at the same time. Your plan isn’t fair. In your plan, someone gets left behind.”

“You get left behind,” Shion said.

Nezumi bit the inside of his cheek, made himself stop. “I don’t want to get left behind,” he admitted, and it came out a whisper.

Shion’s hands slipped from Nezumi’s hair to cup the sides of his face. His palms were warm and soft. “We can’t live on a roof,” he finally said.

Nezumi nodded. “I know.” He leaned down until his forehead was against Shion’s and closed his eyes.

He missed Shion more than the night before and more than that morning. With every second that passed, he knew he’d miss Shion more, and the problem was his seconds would never run out. He’d miss and miss and miss and never be able to stop.

*


	16. Chapter 16

From the roof, they went to Nezumi’s apartment because Shion wanted to brush his teeth. After they both brushed their teeth and peed, and Nezumi put the cake box in his fridge, they left Nezumi’s apartment.

“Breakfast?” Shion asked, outside the apartment building.

“Okay,” Nezumi agreed. He let Shion lead them, and Shion didn’t take them to the bakery. Instead, they went to a diner in the opposite direction.

They were seated at a booth in the diner. Nezumi had never been there before, and neither had Shion.

“Do you teach today?” Nezumi asked, after a waitress dropped off menus and glasses of water.

“I emailed my students to cancel class when we were in your apartment.”

“Do you think you’ll do that the rest of your life? Teach at the university?” Nezumi asked, watching Shion examine his menu.

“I haven’t thought that far. I like teaching a lot, and researching, and I see myself at the university for a good number of years to come. But I’m open to change too, if that’s what happens later on. I’m still young.”

Nezumi nodded. Shion was still young. Twenty-five exactly.

“What are you going to get?” Shion asked, looking back at his menu.

Nezumi looked at his own. “I don’t know. You?”

“Let’s split a bunch of things. I’m starving.”

“You weren’t even on that roof for a day, you’re not starving.”

Shion laughed. “Figuratively speaking then.”

“I’ll split whatever you want,” Nezumi said.

Shion rested his elbow on the table and his cheek on his palm. “You will, won’t you? I never understood that.”

“What?”

“Why you’re nicer to me than anyone else.”

Nezumi leaned back against the leather cushion of his booth. “I have a crush on you. I wasn’t going to tell you, but now you’ve forced it out of me.”

Shion’s smile grew slow and wide. “I suspected it was something like that.”

“I guess I should have hid it better.”

“You shouldn’t hide it at all,” Shion said, and then the waitress was beside their table, and Nezumi nearly jumped out of his skin, as he’d forgotten they were not alone.

He let Shion order, and indeed, Shion ordered about five meals.

Nezumi didn’t care. Shion was right. He’d do anything Shion wanted. He’d do anything Shion asked. He’d do anything.

*

After breakfast, which lasted about two hours, they headed back to the apartment to drop off the leftovers in Nezumi’s fridge, then left again. They walked around the city, Shion pulling them into various stores to look at kitchenware and then books and then electronics and then clothes. He bought nothing but a pair of sunglasses that he wore until the sky filled with clouds, and then they perched on his head.

They ended up in a park with Shion running up to all the dogs being walked, asking if he could pet them.

It was a normal day, and that was what made it abnormal, but neither of them commented on this until they were sitting outside of a café and suddenly the sky was no longer light but dark and darkening.

Shion glanced at his watch, but he didn’t tell Nezumi the time. Instead, he slid his sunglasses back onto his nose and asked, “Are you sure these aren’t too big for my face?”

“They’re not too big for your face,” Nezumi confirmed, as he’d done several times throughout the day. They were too big for his face, but Nezumi had wanted Shion to buy something, to have something from today, a good day, a normal day.

Shion wrinkled his nose and slid the glasses back into his hair. “I have to go home soon,” he said, while Nezumi took a sip of tea.

Nezumi lowered his mug. Swallowed his tea. It was no longer hot, or even warm. He’d been taking his time to drink it. As if the longer his tea lasted, the longer the day would last.

“What will you do?” Shion asked. He was not looking at Nezumi, but at the napkin he was slowly shredding.

“I’ll go home,” Nezumi said.

Shion shredded another strip from the napkin’s side. Then looked up. “Where’s home?” he asked. His eyes were wet, and as if he knew Nezumi was noticing this, he immediately lifted his hand and dropped the sunglasses back onto his nose, shielding his eyes.

Nezumi could see his own reflection in the lenses of Shion’s sunglasses. His hair was still down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d left it down the whole day. “My apartment,” he finally said.

Shion bit his lip. Turned his face away from Nezumi to look at the street. “Did you know that this whole time? Or had you not made up your mind until I asked?”

“I didn’t think about it,” Nezumi said.

“Maybe you should have thought about it. It matters.”

“I know it matters.”

“Then why didn’t you think about it?” Shion demanded, turning back to Nezumi and pulling off his sunglasses and slamming them on the table beside his half-shredded napkin. “You let me think—You let me think—”

“You knew this was just for the day.”

“How could I have known that? What indication did you give me?”

“We don’t have to end today with a fight.”

“No? How should we end it? I thank you for your time and we part ways happy until the next time you decide to gift me with twenty-four hours of being your boyfriend?”

“We’re friends, Shion, this is what friends do.”

“You have no friends, so it’s possible you just don’t know, but this isn’t what friends do. They don’t fall asleep together. They don’t kiss. They don’t act like you did today. This isn’t friendship. You don’t know how to be my friend, and I don’t know how to be yours. We can never go back to that. I’ll never stop hoping it’ll turn into something more, and you’ll never stop letting me hope because you like it, you like flirting with me, you like looking at me the way you do, you like making me want you because you’re alone and you want to be wanted.” Shion slammed up from the table and stalked down the sidewalk.

Nezumi left money on the table for a tip before following him, catching up to him easily, falling into step beside him.

“Stop following me,” Shion said, once they’d walked two blocks together.

“This is better than nothing. You said last night you just wanted to be around me, you didn’t care what we did, remember that? We can do anything you want, but I can’t live with you anymore, and we probably shouldn’t be sexual, but that’s the only thing we can’t do. So what’s the problem? You’re mad I won’t sleep with you?”

“That’s _not_ the problem,” Shion said, quickening his pace.

Nezumi lengthened his stride to match Shion’s. “Then what is?”

“This is all on your terms, Nezumi, don’t you think that’s selfish? Whatever rules you set for us, I have to follow. That’s not fair. That’s not right.”

“Life isn’t fair. Hasn’t anyone told you that yet?”

“Oh, shut up,” Shion said shortly.

“I’m giving you as much as I can, Your Majesty. I know you understand that.”

“And I have to stay on retainer for you, right? I have to be available for you to entertain yourself with whenever you think you can handle it, and otherwise I have to stay away because it’s too painful for you to be around me, and I can’t form any other meaningful relationships because I’m so caught up giving you all of my emotional energy.”

“Emotional energy?” Nezumi asked, and Shion stopped abruptly.

“Don’t even try to make fun of me right now,” he snapped, then ran a hand roughly through his hair, which in turn knocked his sunglasses off his head. They clattered to the sidewalk, and Shion looked down at them. He sighed dramatically and didn’t pick them up, so Nezumi did.

He held them out for Shion, who took them in a way that seemed grudging.

“Look. I’ll be in this uncertain flirty limbo with you for the rest of my life, fine, if that’s all you can give me, then I’ll take it. But I’m allowed to be bitter about it and pissed off with you when one moment you’re kissing me softly on a rooftop and the next you’re telling me we’re just friends.”

“Kissing you softly on a rooftop,” Nezumi repeated.

“Yeah, that’s what you did, you’re the sappy romantic here, not me,” Shion said, pointing his sunglasses at Nezumi. “Now walk me to the train.”

Shion did not give Nezumi the option to refuse, as he was already walking again, so Nezumi followed, not saying anything when Shion realized he was going the wrong way and had to turn around.

They were at the train too soon, but it wasn’t coming for another fifteen minutes, so Nezumi stood beside Shion silently on the platform and waited with him, and Shion didn’t protest.

“It’s not just that it’s all uncertain,” Shion said, when the board listed five minutes remaining for the train’s arrival. “It’s that I feel pathetic, hoping you’ll change your mind again. Hoping you’ll come home with me. Hoping you’ll want me again.”

Nezumi glanced at Shion, who was looking out at the empty rail. “I do want you.”

“I can’t have a normal relationship. I’m just waiting for you. It’s pathetic, and I can’t stop.”

“It’s not pathetic.”

“Of course, it is,” Shion said, as if Nezumi was stupid for trying to argue.

“Imagine how pathetic I feel. I lived a century unencumbered by the hassle of relationships, and then you came around and fucked all that up. Now I’m a mess.”

Shion finally looked at him. “This is the problem. You’re sweet and soft one second and an asshole the next. Just be an asshole all the time.”

“What should I do? Push you into the tracks?”

“Treat me like you do everyone else.”

“And how’s that?”

“With disinterest.”

Nezumi tucked his hands in his pockets and looked out at the rails. The train would be here any minute.

“I can’t do that,” he told the empty rails.

“You’re an incredible actor.”

“I’m not that good,” Nezumi said.

“See, when you say things like that, how am I not supposed to feel—” Shion didn’t finish his sentence, which was fine. Nezumi didn’t need to be told how Shion felt. He knew. He felt the same.

The train came, and Shion looked at Nezumi before getting on, but neither said anything. And then Shion was on the train, the same one Nezumi used to take daily to go back and forth from rehearsals and shows to Shion’s apartment, back when that used to be his home, too.

*

The next day, Nezumi was making scones in the bakery when Shion walked into the kitchen.

“Your Majesty,” Nezumi greeted, somewhat surprised to see him, watching Shion head to the sink.

“I’m going to be coming in here a couple times a week. Is that okay?” 

“Of course.”

“And we could hang out like we did yesterday more often.”

“I’d like that.”

“Don’t be nice,” Shion said, eyes narrowed, and Nezumi held up his hands.

“Right. I meant, if you have to torture me with your presence, I’ll grudgingly put up with it, but don’t expect me to be happy.”

Shion did not look at all assuaged, but he turned on the sink, washed his hands, pulled on his apron, and stood beside Nezumi, who caught him up on what Karan needed.

Shion had gathered the ingredients for lemon bars before he asked, “Did you talk to my mom?”

“This morning during prep.” 

“And? Did she yell at you?”

“Did she yell at you?” Nezumi asked back.

“No. She asked if I had a good birthday, and I said yes, and that was it.”

“You got off easy,” Nezumi said, pulling the formed dough from his bowl to knead it. “She asked me about my intentions, what we did, what we were going to do now, the whole thing.”

“And you said?” 

“I said we didn’t do anything, and I don’t have any intentions, and if you stopped being mad at me for not having any intentions, then we’d be friends again.”

“And she bought that?” Shion asked, cutting lemons in half.

“It’s the truth.”

“Right,” Shion said. He finished cutting the lemons and slid the bowl of them to Nezumi. “Can you squeeze them for me?”’

“Baby,” Nezumi said, but he took the bowl and the measuring cup and squeezed the lemons while Shion watched him.

“I’m going to try to date other people.” 

“Sure.”

“Not like Hiroki. Normal people.”

“I like Hiroki,” Nezumi said, and Shion glared at him, which made Nezumi laugh.

“Can I talk to you about my dates, or do you not want to hear about them?”

“Oh, I definitely want to hear about them. In explicit detail,” Nezumi replied.

“And if I fall in love?” Shion asked, looking completely serious, so Nezumi made himself not laugh.

“I will be very happy for you.” 

“You don’t have to be too happy,” Shion mumbled, and Nezumi smiled.

“I’ll be moderately happy and very jealous and secretly loathing,” Nezumi amended.

Shion was watching Nezumi’s hands as he squeezed the lemons. “I’m serious, Nezumi.”

“I know you are.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, so you have to tell me if you don’t want to hear about this stuff.” 

“If it starts to break my heart, I’ll be sure to tell you.” 

“I know you think you’re joking, but I’m going to trust you to do that,” Shion said.

Nezumi finished squeezing the last lemon half and flexed his fingers. “Who says I’m joking? Here you go, freshly squeezed.”

“Thanks.” Shion took back the bowl, and when Nezumi washed his hands, Shion said from behind him, “I have a date tonight.” 

Nezumi had a cut cuticle, and the lemon juice was sharp in his cut even after he finished washing his hands. He turned to Shion, leaning back against the sink while he dried his hands. “Did you plan this before or after yesterday?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” 

“I’m asking out of sheer curiosity to understand the timeline.”

“I redownloaded some dating apps last night when I got home,” Shion said. “That’s where I met him.”

“Let me see his profile.”

“No.”

“Why? Are you worried I’ll go after him in a jealous rage? Hire a hit man to take him out before your date?”

“I know you think you’re funny, but you’re really not,” Shion said, but he was fishing out his phone anyway, tapping on it before handing it to Nezumi.

Nezumi took it and looked at an average-looking Japanese man. He was tall, but that was the only noticeable thing about him. His name was Kaito, and he was thirty-two years old.

“He seems utterly boring.” 

“He’s not. He’s rich.”

“I’m rich.”

“Don’t be a child,” Shion said, snatching back his phone before Nezumi was finished sliding through all the pictures.

“Are you a golddigger now?”

“Maybe I am. What does it matter to you? Maybe I’m totally shallow and I only care about wealth and that’s the only reason I was interested in you.”

“I knew it,” Nezumi said, and Shion’s mouth twitched, but he bit his lip as if to stop himself from smiling.

“And I have another date tomorrow night too,” Shion said, sliding the measuring cup of lemon juice towards him.

“You booked the guy for two dates in a row? What if you don’t like him?”

“Another guy,” Shion said. “And on Thursday too.”

“I thought you just downloaded these apps last night.”

“I did.”

“And you have three dates already.” 

“Four, I also have one on Friday,” Shion said.

“Let me see your profile.”

Nezumi thought Shion would argue, but instead, Shion was pulling out his phone again, then giving it to Nezumi.

Shion’s first photograph was of him and Safu in their kitchen. Safu was holding the camera, her face filling up half the photograph, and Shion was behind her, looking up from vegetables he was chopping and smiling in a distracted way as if he wasn’t paying much attention to the fact that a photo was being taken of him. It was surprisingly sexy, and Nezumi looked at it for a long time before sliding to the next photograph.

The second one was just Shion, laughing with a bottle of wine in his hand and wearing a suit with his tie loosened and the first few buttons undone. He looked half drunk, and Nezumi assumed this had been taken at some work function. Nezumi wasn’t sure if he looked sexier in this photograph or the previous one.

He slid again. Shion was sitting on a beach, shirtless, the photograph having been taken from behind him. He was looking over his shoulder at the camera, half smiling and squinting as if the sun was in his eyes. Sunlight had caught in his hair and made it almost luminescent. The wind of his scar dipped around his waist and into the waistband of his bathing suit.

The next photograph, Nezumi remembered having taken himself. Shion was laughing again, this time with his mouth open and his tongue out to lick his ice cream cone. It was actually Nezumi’s ice cream, which he’d taken because his own had fallen. Nezumi couldn’t remember why Shion was laughing, but he remembered taking the photograph to use as evidence. _You owe me a cone, I’m going to send you this as evidence,_ he’d said, and Shion had agreed.

The next one was a selfie, Shion lying on his bed shirtless. He was smiling, but it was a half-smile, small and secretive and seductive. Nezumi turned the phone to show Shion, who just raised his eyebrows.

“Since when did you take photos like this?” 

“It’s a dating app, Nezumi. That’s the point. It’s hardly scandalous, a lot of guys have dick pics.”

“Did Safu help you make your profile?” Nezumi asked, going back through the photos again to make sure there were no dick pics.

“Do you think I’m incapable of making profiles on my own?”

“I’m a little surprised by your ability to market yourself, yes. Who took this beach photo?”

“Hiroki,” Shion said, taking his phone from Nezumi’s hand.

“If you’re back on the market, you should give him another chance.”

“Don’t give me dating advice.”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t tell you not to go on four dates in four days? You’re not cut out to be a serial dater, Shion, you’ll burn out.”

“That is included under the umbrella of unwanted dating advice,” Shion said.

“Is there one you like the most so far?” Nezumi asked. He was fascinated by the idea of Shion dating. He wondered if Safu knew where these men were taking Shion, if she’d tell him so he could go undercover, watch Shion in action. He wanted to know if Shion would act differently with these men than he did with Nezumi.

“Rai. He’s on Thursday.”

“And what makes him the frontrunner?”

“He has the best dick pic,” Shion said, dipping a measuring cup into the bag of flour.

“That’s a joke, right?”

Shion glanced up, his smile slight. “If you want it to be. Let’s say I like him for his sense of humor. And his kind eyes.”

“You really think you can make me jealous, don’t you?” Nezumi asked, incredulous.

“I know I can make you jealous,” Shion said back, laughing when Nezumi dipped his hand in the bag of flour and threw a handful at his face. “Nezumi!”

Nezumi ducked when Shion tried to retaliate. “Don’t make a mess in your mother’s kitchen,” he warned, straightening up again and this time getting a face-full of flour. “Now you’ve done it.”

Shion shrieked, still laughing, and ran around the counter while Nezumi grabbed another fistful of flour and chased after him.

Nezumi wasn’t jealous of any of these men. Maybe they’d have a night with Shion, but Nezumi got to have Shion’s whole life.

*


	17. Chapter 17

To Nezumi’s surprise, Shion did not tire of dating.

Even more surprising was that it started to bother Nezumi, who was seeing as much of Shion as he had when Shion had been growing up, before everything had gotten complicated. Everything was the way it had been, minus the fact that Shion’s nights were always taken by the men he met online.

“Oh, I’ve got to get ready,” Shion said, jumping up from the couch where he’d been leaning against Nezumi as they watched a documentary on some American serial killer from the eighties.

“Seriously?” Nezumi asked, sitting up and watching Shion run out of the room.

“Feel free to stay if you want to finish watching with Safu,” Shion called from the hallway, out of sight. “But be gone by midnight, I don’t want you here when I come back in case I bring him here.”

“Which one is this?” Nezumi asked Safu, who had been sitting on the couch on the other side of Shion, though she was reading a book instead of watching.

“Rai.”

“Another Rai?”

“The same Rai.”

“The first Rai was three weeks ago,” Nezumi reminded.

“They’ve been going out for three weeks.”

“Excuse me? Have all of his dates been with this Rai?”

“I think they’ve only been exclusive since last week,” Safu said, flipping a page of her book and sounding disinterested. “Doesn’t he keep you up to date?”

Nezumi stood up from the couch, stepped over Safu’s legs, and went to Shion’s room. The door was closed, but Nezumi didn’t bother knocking before he opened it. Shion was pulling on a pair of jeans.

“You could knock,” Shion said, buttoning them.

“Safu told me you’re going steady with this Rai guy.”

Shion raised his eyebrows. “Why do you sound like a dad about to lecture me?”

“What do you know about what dads sound like? You don’t have one,” Nezumi reminded.

“I might as well,” Shion muttered, pulling off his t-shirt to replace it with another one.

“All I’m saying is I haven’t heard about this, and you’re the one who said you wanted to tell me about your dates.”

“I do tell you about my dates.”

Nezumi closed Shion’s door behind him and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest while Shion looked in his mirror, then pulled off the t-shirt he’d just put on.

“This Rai. Is he your boyfriend or something?”

“Yes,” Shion said, pulling on another t-shirt.

Nezumi’s arms seemed to uncross all on their own and fall to his sides. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I did tell you that. I told you last week.”

“You didn’t.” 

“I did. After I came to see your play last Friday, I told you I was done casually dating because Rai asked if I wanted to be his boyfriend and be exclusive. And you said, ‘Did he give you a promise ring?’ and I said, ‘I want you to meet him,’ and you said, ‘Does this mean you want to meet the people I’m fucking?’ and I said—”

“Okay, okay,” Nezumi said, holding up his hands.

Shion had his hands on his hips. “I told you. You’re the one who chose not to listen. Don’t act all betrayed now.”

“I’m not acting betrayed. I’m sorry I didn’t listen, don’t be mad.”

Shion’s jaw tightened, but then his expression softened, and he dropped his hands from his hips. “Fine. I won’t be mad. But I’m serious.”

“I get it, I’m a bad listener.”

“No—well, yes—but I’m serious that I want you to meet him. We’re having dinner with Mom tomorrow night. You should come to that. I originally asked you if you wanted to come a few days ago, but you made fun of me and didn’t take it seriously as usual.”

“I thought you were joking!” Nezumi protested, defensive, remembering this conversation, remembering thinking Shion was joking because he’d thought Shion was suggesting inviting his mother to meet one of his fuck buddies.

“Will you come tomorrow?”

“I have a show.”

“I know, we’re all going to it and then we’re doing dinner after.”

“You’re bringing him to my show?” Nezumi asked.

“Is that a problem?” Shion asked back, then turned away from Nezumi to look back in the mirror and pull off his shirt again.

“Will you stop changing your shirts?” Nezumi demanded.

“He’s seen me in all of these!” Shion complained.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t date an idiot, so he must be aware that washing machines exist. When do you even see this guy? I’m always with you.”

“I see him at night, and he meets me for lunch between classes most days,” Shion replied, pulling on a shirt he’d already tried. “And on weekends when you have rehearsals, I see him then too.”

“Shouldn’t you prioritize him over me?” Nezumi asked.

Shion threw the discarded shirts in his closet and closed the door of it. “Don’t start with me. You’re my best friend, and I like spending time with you. I prioritize both of you equally.”

“But shouldn’t you prioritize him more?” Nezumi asked.

“Move,” Shion said, so Nezumi moved from the front of the door, and Shion left his room.

Nezumi followed him to the bathroom and stood in the doorway to watch Shion apply deodorant, then start brushing his teeth.

“Has Safu met him?” Nezumi asked, since Shion didn’t seem willing to continue the previous line of questioning.

“A few times.”

“She met him before I did?” 

Shion glanced at him with his toothbrush in his mouth, then leaned over the sink to spit. Nezumi left the doorway of the bathroom and returned to the living room, where Safu had not moved.

“What’s he like?” Nezumi asked, sitting on the couch beside her and grabbing her book from her hands.

“Can you not involve me in your drama?”

“Just three adjectives.”

Safu sighed, then held up her hand, putting up a finger for each adjective she listed, “Sexy, hilarious, clever.”

Nezumi looked at her for a moment, then threw her book across the living room.

“Very mature,” Safu said dryly.

“I could say the same to you,” Nezumi said back, leaning back against the couch while Safu stood up and went after her book.

“I heard your conversation. You’re meeting him tomorrow, why don’t you just wait to see for yourself what he’s like?” Safu asked, bending behind a stack of books.

“I trust your judgment.”

“He’s good for Shion.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not you,” Safu said, standing up with her book in hand.

“He’s a lunatic like Hiroki, isn’t he?”

“You wish,” Safu said, flicking through her book. “Dammit, Nezumi, I’ve lost my place now.”

Shion appeared from the hallway then, smelling incredible.

“Are you wearing cologne?” Nezumi asked.

Shion glanced at him. “If you’re staying here, remember to be gone before midnight. Maybe earlier to be safe.”

“I thought you wanted me to meet him.”

“I want you to meet him tomorrow at dinner.”

Nezumi stood up and followed Shion into the kitchen. “Since when did you wear cologne?”

“Since I started dating Rai,” Shion said back, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of sake.

“You have to drink in order to get along with him. That’s not a good sign,” Nezumi warned.

Shion held out the bottle and smiled lightly. “It’s for you. You look like you could use a drink. I’ll see you later. Don’t be here when I get back.”

“So rude,” Nezumi said, not taking the bottle, so Shion put it on the counter before he left the kitchen.

“Bye, Safu! Make sure to kick Nezumi out before I get back!”

“Have a good time!” Safu called back, and then he was gone.

Nezumi stared at the bottle of sake, then picked it up, uncapped it, took a swig, capped it again, and replaced it in the fridge as he swallowed. He returned to the living room, where Safu was back in the corner of the couch as she had been.

“Don’t bother me, I’m reading. You can stay if you want, but don’t put up a fight when I have to kick you out.”

“What’s the big deal if I’m here when Shion brings his boyfriend home? Am I a secret?”

“You’re not a secret. What did I say about bothering me?”

“Then why can’t I be here?”

“You don’t live here. Go home.”

“I’m meeting him tomorrow anyway.”

Safu finally looked up from her book. “So you’re going to dinner with them?” 

Nezumi sat on the couch again. “Why aren’t you coming?”

“It’s a family thing.”

“And I’m family? Will I have to pretend to be Shion’s stepdad? His brother? A cousin?”

Safu sighed, closing her book with her thumb in the pages to mark her place. “Rai knows about you. Your history with Shion, that you were his babysitter and then his boyfriend. He knows about all the complicated parts, and he knows that a part of Shion will always love you. Shion told him all of it because he wants this to work, he likes Rai a lot, and according to Shion, Rai is surprisingly fine with all of it. Things are good between them, and Shion is happy, so you should really behave if what you actually want is for him to remain happy.”

“What else would I want?”

“To ruin all of his relationships so he only wants you.”

“That certainly doesn’t sound like me,” Nezumi said, and Safu smiled lightly.

“It’s very cute to see you jealous, and I know Shion is enjoying it, but don’t take it too far, okay?”

“I’m not jealous,” Nezumi objected, but Safu had already turned back to her book and ignored him.

Nezumi glared at her, then stretched to resume the documentary on Shion’s laptop. He had not cared much about this serial killer, but now he found himself interested in all the ways to kill a person, just out of curiosity, no other reason than that.

*

The next day was the last night of _Titanic._ After the show, Nezumi changed out of his costume, then left his dressing room to find Karan waiting for him outside the door.

“You were lovely. Even after all these years, you never fail to surprise me by how talented you are,” she said, hugging him. “I would have brought you flowers, but then you’d have to carry them all night, so I put them in your apartment.”

“Thanks, Karan,” Nezumi said, and when Karan released him, Nezumi didn’t move, waiting to hear why Karan had come to meet him outside his dressing room instead of at the front of the theater like they’d agreed previously.

“I wanted to talk to you before you met him,” Karan said, stepping closer to the wall as the crew carried items of the set through the hallway.

Nezumi stepped closer to the wall as well, nodding at a crew member who told him, _Nice show, Eve,_ before looking back at Karan. “Him as in Shion’s boyfriend.”

“I don’t know what Shion has told you, but he really likes him.”

“I’ve heard.” 

Karan just looked at him.

“I’m going to be nice,” Nezumi said, exasperated. “You don’t need to lecture me, I know how to play nice. I’m a very talented actor, you just said it, remember?”

“I’m not worried about how you’ll act with Rai. But you know how you are with Shion.”

Nezumi blinked at her. “How am I with Shion?”

“You flirt with him ruthlessly,” Karan said flatly, and Nezumi laughed, but she didn’t smile. “I’m not joking. You both flirt with each other, and it’s fine, I personally don’t mind, but just tonight maybe you can tone it down. Just so Rai doesn’t feel bad.”

“Hold on. Are you telling me not to make the boyfriend feel jealous?” Nezumi asked, certain he couldn’t be understanding correctly.

“Honey. You’re a very beautiful man. You just gave an incredible performance on stage—it really was not good planning on Shion’s part to bring Rai to see one of your shows right before he meets you, but it’s too late to fix that. So maybe you can try to be less…yourself. Just tonight, the first time he’s meeting you. So as not to…”

“Scare him off?” Nezumi asked, grinning.

“See, that smile is stunning. Don’t do that around him,” Karan said, pointing, and Nezumi laughed again.

“Karan, truly, I’m very flattered.”

“Hon, you think I’m joking, but I’m not. You’re an intimidating ex-boyfriend, and you’re not just Shion’s ex, you’re his best and oldest friend. The fact that Rai is fine with Shion being best friends with his ex is already an achievement, you don’t need to push it. Now come on, we should go meet them, Shion thinks I’ve gone to the bathroom.”

“I can chew with my mouth open if you think that will help,” Nezumi said, following Karan through the backstage hall back to the front.

“I know you think it’s all very funny, but consider about how Rai would feel.”

“If anything, you should be comforting me. I’m meeting the boyfriend of the guy I’m still pretty crazy about,” Nezumi reminded.

“Don’t pretend this isn’t amusing for you. You know how you can be, you have a very charming smile, and I don’t want to see it tonight.”

Nezumi laughed again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And stop laughing so much.”

“You realize this is ridiculous.”

They were nearly at the front exit now, and Karan stopped, so Nezumi did too, and almost immediately he was approached by a fan who wanted an autograph.

Karan waited for Nezumi to finish the autograph before speaking. “I know it’s ridiculous, hon. I know it is. But it’s also a miracle that Shion has found a guy he likes that ages at a proper rate and isn’t going to break his heart. So I’m going to be ridiculous, and I’m going to ask you to do this for me, to make Rai feel comfortable rather than jealous or not good enough, and I’m going to hope you take my request seriously.”

Nezumi examined her serious expression. “I’ll do what I can to not be intimidating. I get it, Karan, I do, I know this is important.”

“It is.”

“I know.”

“Okay,” Karan said, giving Nezumi another look before pushing out the front door.

“Is he super ugly?” Nezumi whispered, following Karan.

“No, no, he’s very handsome, he’s just not you,” Karan said back.

Nezumi grinned, and Karan glared at him, so he stopped grinning and looked around, spotting Shion’s white hair quickly.

He was on the sidewalk talking to a man that was, indeed, as Karan had described, very handsome. He was taller than Shion, maybe taller than Nezumi, with hair that looked fluffy and good for grabbing and pulling while fucking. He looked like someone Nezumi would go after in a bar even if he wasn’t totally plastered. He had a pretty sort of face, like the kind of face that guys in boy bands had.

“I don’t like him,” Nezumi whispered to Karan.

“Nezumi,” Karan said warningly.

“After all that, I thought he’d be uglier.”

“I told you he wasn’t ugly,” Karan hissed back, and then they were on the sidewalk, and Nezumi straightened up and smiled his charming smile before remembering he wasn’t supposed to do that—but he wanted to make this guy feel insecure, he wanted to scare him off.

“You were so good!” Shion said, hugging Nezumi immediately, and Nezumi hugged him back, certain now that Karan hadn’t given Shion the same talk she’d given him.

Nezumi squeezed Shion’s waist longer than he should have, and he knew that, and he could tell Karan was glaring at him, but he also knew Rai was looking because he was watching Rai over Shion’s shoulder.

“Your Majesty, you should introduce me to your sexy boyfriend,” Nezumi said, and Shion let go of him and immediately linked his arm through Rai’s.

“Right, this is Rai. Rai, this is Nezumi.”

Nezumi held out a hand. “It’s great to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Rai shook his hand and smiled sheepishly. “Well, thanks, but I doubt it’s as much as I’ve heard about you. You were really great, by the way, I’ve never seen one of your shows, and now I feel like I’ve been missing out. Honestly, you could be famous.” 

“I am famous,” Nezumi said kindly.

Rai laughed in an embarrassed way, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yes, that’s true, of course, sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.”

“Shall we go?” Karan asked abruptly.

“I called an Uber, it’ll be here soon,” Shion said, looking at his phone screen.

“And what do you do?” Nezumi asked Rai.

“I’m a kindergarten teacher,” Rai said.

“How honorable. There’s nothing more important than teaching the youth,” Nezumi said.

“That’s very true,” Karan added.

“Yeah, I love kids,” Rai said, then immediately looked horrified. “But not like that! Not in a creepy way, that’s not—I didn’t mean—”

“No worries, Shion’s a hundred years younger than me, and I still fucked him, so I certainly won’t be judging you,” Nezumi offered.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, frowning. “That’s not the same.”

“Do you think it’s gross?” Nezumi asked Rai.

“Oh, uh, no, I wouldn’t say—”

“Can you behave for once?” Shion asked, pushing Nezumi. “Ignore him, he finds joy in making people uncomfortable,” he said to Rai. “Oh, the Uber’s turning the corner, it should be coming down now—Yeah, that’s it.” 

When the Uber pulled up to them, Shion and Rai went toward it, but Karan grabbed Nezumi’s arm and pulled him back.

“I can’t help it,” Nezumi said, before she could say anything. “Seriously, I can’t, it’s just happening, I’m not trying to be like this.”

“You’re not a child, you can control your actions,” Karan said sternly.

“I’m allowed to be jealous, Karan. I’m allowed to have feelings about this.”

“Really? You’re going to play that card?” Karan snapped, releasing Nezumi and heading to the Uber.

Nezumi ran his fingers through his bangs, then followed, having to sit in the front seat because Karan had slid beside Rai and Shion in the back.

Karan asked Rai about teaching kindergarten, and they chatted in the back while Nezumi looked out the window and stayed silent. He didn’t know if he was being selfish. He didn’t know if Karan was overreacting, or if she was right. He didn’t know if it was a miracle Shion had found some guy he liked that wasn’t Nezumi. Maybe it was. Maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Maybe Nezumi was supposed to let Shion move on, and be supportive, and want him to be happy—and he did, he wanted Shion to be happy, but not with this guy.

Nezumi leaned his head against his headrest and closed his eyes. He felt a tap on his arm and knew it was Shion because Rai and Karan were still talking.

“You okay?” Shion asked.

Nezumi didn’t open his eyes. “Just tired. I’m fine.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.” 

The Uber ride was short, and soon the car stopped and Nezumi had to open his eyes and get out of the car with the rest of them. They were at some fancy sushi place, which made Nezumi think of how he’d met Hiroki in a sushi place. Thinking about Hiroki cheered him up, but only mildly. He’d been somewhat annoyed by Hiroki, and now he had no idea why. Hiroki was harmless. He was a true lunatic. He was a clear substitute for Nezumi, and there was no way Shion would have lasted with him.

Nezumi couldn’t say how long things would last with this Rai. He seemed normal and nice. Nezumi missed the days of Hiroki.

Rai had made reservations, so they were seated immediately. Nezumi was about to sit beside Shion, but Karan was too quick and sat before he could, so Nezumi ended up across from Shion and between Karan and Rai.

He stretched out his leg and found Shion’s shin, slid the tip of his boot up Shion’s leg until Shion looked at him.

“Behave,” Shion said, but he was smiling in an amused way.

Rai looked between Shion and Nezumi and said nothing. Nezumi took his foot from Shion’s leg and glanced down at his menu, pretending he wasn’t aware of Karan’s glare.

A waiter delivered water and asked for drink orders. Karan and Shion and Rai all had water, but Nezumi ordered a glass of vodka.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, when the waiter left.

“Your Majesty,” Nezumi said back.

“Can I ask about that?” Rai asked, distracting Nezumi.

“What?”

“It’s just—That’s the second time—You call Shion—Is it, is it, ‘Your Majesty’?”

Nezumi smiled and glanced at Shion, who blinked as if he hadn’t thought about how the nickname would sound to anyone else until now.

“It’s from a long time ago,” Karan said quickly.

“It’s a term of endearment,” Nezumi added. “Like sweetie or babe. I’m sure you call Shion something too.”

“It’s an insult,” Shion corrected abruptly, and Nezumi laughed.

“Sure, that’s what I meant.”

“It’s not like sweetie or babe,” Shion said, looking only at Rai, his hand on Rai’s wrist.

Rai just shrugged and moved his wrist free from Shion’s hand, but he guised this move by picking up his glass of water. “Sure. It’s sweet,” he said, then sipped his water, not looking at Shion.

Shion slipped his hand back in his lap. “It’s not like that, Rai,” he said quietly. “It’s just an old nickname.”

Nezumi’s chest squeezed. He wanted Shion to look at him, but he was only looking at Rai, and then thankfully the waiter was there with the drinks, and Nezumi drank half his vodka at once.

When he set his glass down, Shion was finally looking at him. He didn’t look mad. He looked worried, and this was worse.

“I’m fine,” Nezumi said.

“Okay,” Shion said back.

“Is there something…” Rai started.

“He’s an alcoholic,” Karan said.

“Mom! He’s not,” Shion said quickly.

“He’s not,” Nezumi added, smiling at Rai. “He just likes to drink. A lot.”

“Can I speak to you?” Karan asked.

“Me?” Nezumi asked back, but he got up when Karan did and followed her to the edge of the restaurant by the restrooms.

Karan just crossed her arms and looked at him until Nezumi had to look away from her.

“I can leave,” he offered.

“Shion will hate it if you leave,” Karan said shortly.

“You think I don’t feel like shit? I do, okay, I shouldn’t have said that terms of endearment thing, I saw that Shion was upset, I’m not blind.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“I can’t help it! And why the hell did you say I was an alcoholic?”

“Aren’t you?” Karan demanded.

“Not currently,” Nezumi said tightly. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand. “Give me a second, and I’ll come back and be good. Okay?”

“You love him, Nezumi, I know you do. So prove it for once,” Karan said sharply, and then she walked back to the table.

Nezumi went to the bathroom instead. He peed and then washed his hands and looked at himself in the mirror. Since Shion was back in his life, he’d stopped taking sleeping pills. He looked healthy now, like himself again. He was happy, and this was because of Shion in his life again, and Shion was happy, and he’d thought it was because he was in Shion’s life again, but a part of it might have been Rai too.

Nezumi ducked his head, splashed his face with water, then regretted this as there were no paper towels in the bathroom, just a hand dryer. Nezumi cursed, dried his hands under the dryer with his face dripping, then dragged his hands over his face to get off the excess water.

“Fuck this,” Nezumi muttered, lifting his shirt to dry his face with the front of it. It was a grey shirt, so the water was extremely visible, but Nezumi did not give a shit and left the bathroom.

At the table, Shion and Rai were discussing sushi options even though Shion always got the same thing—tekkamaki and hamachi and toro.

Karan glanced at Nezumi when he sat down, and Nezumi slid his glass, still half filled with vodka, to her.

“Can you put this out of reach?” he asked her quietly.

“Of course.” Karan placed the glass on the other side of her place setting, between her and Shion. Shion noticed this, his eyes slipping from Rai to the glass beside him and then to Nezumi, and then he was looking back at Rai without saying anything.

The waiter returned, and they all placed their orders. Rai and Shion split some chef’s special plate, so Nezumi ordered what Shion usually got. He felt Shion’s eyes on him and glanced at him, gave him a small smile, trying to indicate that this was a harmless move, that Nezumi’s favorites had become Shion’s too because Shion always wanted to share when they used to get sushi together, so Nezumi always got what Shion got.

“So you’ve known Shion forever,” Rai said to Nezumi, surprising him, as he’d expected Rai to ignore him the rest of the night.

“Something like that,” Nezumi agreed, even though _forever_ was an extremely inaccurate term, but he was behaving now.

“Then you knew him before the chemical incident.”

Nezumi blinked at him, then glanced at Shion, whose expression seemed momentarily frozen.

“He did, yeah,” Shion cut in quickly. “I’ve known Nezumi since I was six, and I was sixteen when there was the chemical gas leak at the lab that changed my appearance.”

Nezumi understood the lie and the reason for it immediately and nodded at Rai. “That’s right. He was incredibly average looking when we met.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Rai said, glancing at Shion, who smiled lightly.

“It took a while to get used to this. I hated it at first,” Shion said, touching his hair.

“What did you think about the change?” Rai asked, looking back at Nezumi.

Nezumi examined him. He wasn’t sure what Rai was doing, or trying to do, but that didn’t matter. Nezumi wanted Shion to be happy, which meant being good, so he would do that. “It took getting used to, but it suits him better. Average is boring, and Shion is not.”

“I think it’s sexy. Don’t you?”

“Rai, my mom’s present,” Shion mumbled.

“Oh, sorry, Karan,” Rai said, smiling warmly at her, and then the waiter was back with some appetizer Karan had ordered.

“Rai, tell us about your family,” Karan asked.

“My parents are both lawyers, and I have a little sister who’s in America, actually. She married an American who was here for a year on business.”

“Are you two close?”

“We were, yeah, and at first we talked frequently over Skype and all those messaging apps, but it’s hard to keep that up. She’s been in America for four years now, and I’ve only seen her twice in all that time.”

“That’s hard,” Nezumi offered, attempting to sound sympathetic.

He regretted this when Rai said in return, “It is, but you can get used to anything I suppose. Do you have any siblings?”

Nezumi said nothing, waiting for Rai to remember, but Rai did not seem to be catching on, so Nezumi finally said, “A sister.”

“Younger or—Oh, oh, oh, shit,” Rai said, his face falling as he finally remembered. “I’m an ass, I forgot.”

“It’s fine,” Nezumi said.

“She’s—Is she also like you, or—”

“No one else is like me,” Nezumi said gently. He didn’t want Rai to feel bad. He really was not trying to make Rai feel bad, but the guy was doing it all on his own.

“Rai, it’s okay,” Shion said.

“I’m glad you asked about her. I don’t think about her enough,” Nezumi offered, but Rai only looked more distraught at this.

“I really wasn’t trying to bring it all up. I know people must ask you all the time what it’s like, being, you know, what you are, and I wasn’t trying to—especially not to bring up your family—”

“I appreciate that. You don’t need to apologize. It was a mistake. It’s refreshing really, that you forgot I was Eternal Eve for a moment,” Nezumi said, and Rai looked somewhat less distraught at this, which was a relief. “And she was younger,” he added, after a moment.

“Sorry?” Rai asked.

“My sister. She was younger. Like yours.”

“Oh,” Rai said.

Nezumi felt a tap on his leg, which startled him until he realized it was Shion. When he looked at Shion, Shion was looking back at him, not saying anything but just his look was enough.

_I’m okay_ , Nezumi mouthed at him, and Shion nodded.

The rest of dinner was relatively uneventful, with topics completely unrelated to the fact that Nezumi did not age and had a dead family. Rai liked to hear about Shion as a kid, and both Nezumi and Karan had plenty of stories to tell him, and in turn they asked Rai about himself. He was, compared to Nezumi, completely normal. He liked dogs and Sudoku and horror movies even though they scared him and he had to watch them through the gaps between his fingers, which Shion confirmed from experience, laughing.

Rai made Shion laugh frequently throughout dinner. Nezumi watched this and behaved and asked the right questions and gave the right answers, and he was so relieved when dinner was finally over. He stood outside the restaurant breathing the fresh night air, feeling as if he’d been suffocating for an hour and a half.

Rai, Shion, and Karan all wanted to use the restroom before they left, so Nezumi was waiting for them, and then the restaurant door opened, and only Rai came out.

“Hey,” he said, coming to stand next to Nezumi against the side of the building. “They’ll be right out.”

“Sure.”

“Listen. Thanks for doing this, really,” Rai said.

“Doing what?”

“I know it’s…complicated between you two. He’s told me enough to know that. I can’t imagine you like me very much, and there’s no reason why you should. You’re a really talented actor, which I guess is useful in situations like these. It means a lot that we get along, he was stressing about it.”

“And are you a good actor?” Nezumi asked. Up close to Rai, he only looked more handsome. Nezumi imagined fucking him, then made himself stop, then imagined Shion fucking him, which was worse.

“What do you mean?”

“If I have no reason to like you, then you have no reason to like me. So is this grateful bit an act?”

“Oh,” Rai said, rubbing the back of his neck, laughing lightly. “I guess that’s how that would have come out. No, I don’t think so. I don’t dislike you. Sure, I wish you weren’t really in the picture, it’s tricky to date someone who has such complicated feelings regarding someone else. But there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You can date someone who doesn’t have complicated feelings regarding someone else,” Nezumi suggested.

“I don’t really want to,” Rai replied. “I don’t know what that says about me. I think it says more about Shion. But I don’t have to tell you how incredible he is.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes, unsure if Rai was trying to bait him, unsure how to read Rai’s intentions at all. But before he could figure anything out, the door opened, and Shion and Karan poured out.

“We got mints!” Shion said cheerfully, bouncing to Rai’s side and leaning against him the way he usually leaned against Nezumi. Rai wound an arm around his waist, and Shion held out a palmful of mints.

“Thanks, babe,” Rai said, taking one.

The fact that he said _babe_ did not seem to phase Shion at all, and Nezumi realized it was a normal thing between them.

“I already got one,” Nezumi lied, when Shion held out his hand closer to Nezumi.

“They’re the good kind that dissolve on your tongue,” Shion said.

“Keep the extra then, since you like them so much.”

“I will,” Shion said happily. His arm was around Rai’s waist too, which Nezumi hadn’t noticed, distracted by the mints, distracted by the _babe,_ distracted by how easily Shion leaned into Rai’s side.

“Should I call an Uber for us?” Karan asked.

Shion looked up at Rai. “Do you want to walk home? It’s nice out.”

“Sure,” Rai said. 

“We’re close to here, only fifteen minutes away.”

“I’ll call one for us,” Nezumi told Karan.

“You can come back to our place for a drink,” Shion said, and Nezumi blinked at him, knowing _our_ place meant his and Safu’s place, but thinking it sounded more in that moment like it meant his and Rai’s place.

“That’s okay, I have an early morning.”

“Really, I want you to,” Shion insisted.

“Rain check, Your Maj—” Nezumi cut himself off. “Rain check,” he repeated. He wasn’t sure if he needed to stop saying _Your Majesty_ around Rai.

He looked at his phone, glad for the excuse not to see Shion’s reaction to his idiotic stammering, and called an Uber. It was thankfully right around the corner, and the wait was just five minutes.

“It’ll be here in five,” Nezumi told Karan.

“I’ll say bye now then, honey.” Karan hugged Shion, who unlatched himself from Rai’s side, and then she hugged Rai. “It was so great meeting you. Come to the bakery next time, okay?”

“You too, and yes, absolutely, Shion says that bakery is like his second home. You do both Japanese and American baked goods, right? That’s so interesting,” Rai said.

While he talked to Karan, Shion slipped around them, came to stand on the other side of Nezumi against the wall.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

“Of course,” Nezumi said back.

“Do you like him?”

Nezumi wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “He likes you a lot.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I can’t answer your question.”

Shion nodded. “Okay.”

Nezumi glanced at Rai to make sure he was still talking to Karan, then lowered his voice. “Safu told me you told him everything about us.”

“I did.”

“Chemical gas leak?”

“Well, except that. And also that I’m working on how to change your DNA.”

“You’re still doing that?”

“Of course. Just because you and Safu think it’s pointless doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying. I’ll tell him eventually, but it’s a lot for now. What I’ve told him is already a lot.”

“That’s true. He must be a freak to still want you with all your baggage,” Nezumi said.

Shion smiled. “I like freaks.”

The Uber pulled up then. Nezumi shook Rai’s hand while Karan gave Shion another hug, and then he and Karan got in the car, and they pulled away from the restaurant.

“Thank you for doing that, Nezumi,” Karan said, when the restaurant was out of sight.

“Rai and Shion already thanked me, so it’s been taken care of, trust me.”

Karan put her hand on Nezumi’s thigh, and he looked down at it. Even her hands looked old.

She didn’t say anything else, and neither did Nezumi, and then they were at their apartment building climbing up the stairs.

“Do you like him?” Nezumi asked, when they got to their landing. He held the door of the stairway open for Karan.

“I don’t dislike him.”

“You can say you like him. I won’t see it as a betrayal or anything.”

Karan flicked through her key ring. “I don’t know if I like him. He feels like a stranger. Well, he is one, I suppose. When Shion dated you, that was hard for a number of reasons. But you weren’t a stranger. I knew to trust you.”

“You didn’t trust me at all,” Nezumi reminded, and Karan smiled.

“No, that’s true. But I knew you wouldn’t be mean to him. Maybe you’d break his heart, but you would never be mean to him. You’d give your life for his, I knew that more than anything. I didn’t realize how important that was until now.”

“You think Rai will be mean to him?” Nezumi asked.

“Not necessarily. But that’s the problem. I don’t know. I don’t know him. I haven’t watched Shion grow up with him, I haven’t watched them interact just the two of them. I trusted you with Shion’s life, I mean, you babysat him when he was a kid. But I can’t do the same with Rai. I guess this is how most mothers feel when their children start dating, but I never had to consider any of this when he was dating you. I knew the two of you fought a lot, but I also knew you’d never be violent, and you’d never find joy in hurting him.”

None of these risks had occurred to Nezumi. He realized it wasn’t him that Karan had disapproved of in dating her son. It was everyone who had the capacity to hurt him.

“I think Rai is a good guy,” Nezumi said hesitantly.

“Do you? I’d trust your judgment. Do you want to come in for tea actually? Come,” Karan said, before Nezumi could argue, so he followed her into her apartment and sat at her kitchen table for the first time in a long time.

She filled her kettle with tea, put it on the stove, and joined him. “Tell me. What do you think?”

Nezumi flattened his palms on the table. “I don’t know. I can’t get a read on him. He’s not simple, not some idiot, so I guess he’s a good match for Shion in that way, but I don’t know what he’s thinking. But Shion likes him. That’s got to be a good sign.”

The kettle whistled, and Karan got up, then brought their mugs back to the table. “Is it a good sign?”

“What?”

“That Shion likes him. After all, he likes you.”

Nezumi curled his palms around the mug. “True. He’s not great at picking them.”

“I keep coming back to how they’ll fight. It’s strange, isn’t it? I don’t know why I keep thinking of this. I think it’s because you two fought all the time. You both could hurt each other so much, but then you’d bounce right back, be laughing with each other the next day. Since Shion was a kid, you two would fight, and I’d watch you, a grown man, fighting with my son, and it was such a strange thing to see. And Shion would hold his own, so I never thought to stop you two. You fought like people who loved each other. With the venom and forgiveness of family.”

Nezumi thought back, could remember how annoying Shion was as a kid. He’d never thought about how Karan would have seen them, but of course she was always there.

“I don’t know how Rai will fight,” Karan continued. “He might fight like someone who hates.” Karan looked into her tea, then, and Nezumi thought he understood.

“Did you and Shion’s father fight?”

Karan nodded.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically—well, he only slapped me once. But we’d fight in a different way. He’d shout at me, and he was so cold. Like you, but different. You can be cold, I noticed that right away, and at first I thought you were like him, like Shion’s father.”

“You did?”

Karan tucked her hair behind her ears. “But his was a cold that scared me. I felt fear around him, at the end of it. I thought he might do something to hurt the baby when I told him I wouldn’t get an abortion. That’s a different cold than yours.”

Nezumi traced the edge of his mug. The tea was too hot to drink. “What is my cold like?”

“There’s a hollowness to it. Like you empty out completely of everything, like you have no feeling in you left, like you might not be human. It’s chilling, but it’s not scary. You’re not someone I’ve ever feared, and I knew you were not someone Shion would ever have to fear.”

“Rai probably isn’t like Shion’s father,” Nezumi said, after a moment.

“There’s no way to tell. But it’s not something to worry about for a while. In new relationships, the fights are shallow, they’re not real. They won’t be for a while, and I don’t know how long Rai will last.” 

“You don’t think he’ll last?”

Karan shrugged with just one shoulder. “Shion’s only relationship has been you. His standards are skewed.”

“So I messed him up?”

“No. You’ve made him accustomed to being loved more than most people know how to love. I don’t know if he’ll be able to settle for anything less.”

Nezumi squinted. “So I did mess him up.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so.”

“Shit. Sorry,” Nezumi said, lifting his mug and taking a sip.

“That’s all right. I know you couldn’t help it.” 

“I like having you on my side again,” Nezumi pointed out.

“I like being on your side again.”

They drank the rest of their tea and mused about Rai until it was past midnight, and Karan yawned, and Nezumi told her he’d go, let her sleep, they had early mornings at the bakery.

He stood up from the table and took their mugs to the kitchen to wash them first, and Karan was beside him.

“Don’t bother, hon, I’ll do it later.” 

“It’s just two mugs, it’s fine.”

The water was warm on his hands, and he took his time, feeling Karan leaning lightly against him and liking the feel of her, a safe presence.

“I know Shion wants you to be involved in every part of his life, but you don’t have to be. At least, you don’t have to attend every family dinner if you can’t. I’ll make excuses for you,” Karan said quietly.

Nezumi rinsed the suds off the mugs. “He’ll read into it.”

“Let him. It’s not a secret you love him, is it?”

He turned the faucet off and placed the mugs upside down on Karan’s drying rack.

“All I’m saying is you met him, and that meant everything to Shion. That’s all you were obligated to do.”

Nezumi wondered if Karan noticed the way Shion leaned into Rai’s side. If Karan noticed their arms around each other’s waists. If Karan noticed the _babe_ , how normal that was. How normal all of it was, when Nezumi thought Shion didn’t want normal—wasn’t that what Shion had always said?

“Good night, Karan,” Nezumi said, stepping away from the sink.

“See you in the morning, Nezumi,” she said, her hand on his cheek, then gone again, and Nezumi let himself out of her apartment.

In his own apartment, what he wanted was to leave immediately, go to a bar, drink and find a stranger and bring them home. But he had to get up in five hours for the bakery, so he resisted the urge and went to bed alone.

He laid still and wondered if Shion was sleeping alone. He doubted it.

*


	18. Chapter 18

Time passed the way it did, and then it was Rai’s birthday, which was not a date Nezumi cared at all about, and yet this did not stop him from being told about it. 

He was at Safu and Shion’s apartment, in the living room, where Safu was teaching him to knit while Shion graded essays.

“Fuck, I did a purl stitch instead of the other one,” Nezumi said.

“Just pull it out like I showed you,” Safu said back.

“Can you just do it? I dropped the stitch last time.”

“You have to learn on your own.”

“Do you really think I’ll be knitting on my own?”

“Then why am I teaching you?”

“Guys,” Shion interrupted.

“Sorry, yes, the great professor is at work, we’ll be quieter,” Nezumi muttered. “Why you told me to come over when you did not even plan to speak to me is beyond me.”

“Safu missed you. And I wasn’t going to tell you to be quiet. I’m inviting you to drinks on Friday.”

“A formal invitation to drinks, how fancy,” Nezumi said.

“It’s for Rai’s birthday,” Shion said.

Nezumi dropped his stitch and didn’t notice until Safu took his knitting needles from his hands.

“Let me fix it,” she said, accommodating all of a sudden.

“You’re still seeing that guy?” Nezumi asked.

“Yes. You know that.”

Nezumi did, indeed, know this. He in fact knew it to the detail of how long they’d been dating—exclusively for three months, which made it eleven weeks since Nezumi had seen the guy at that sushi dinner. Nezumi hated keeping track of time, and he particularly hated keeping track of _this_ , but he didn’t seem able to stop himself from being aware of each passing day that Shion was dating this guy.

“Here,” Safu said, giving Nezumi back the mess he was knitting, which was supposed to be a scarf and looked nothing like one.

“Thanks.”

“He’s turning thirty-four,” Shion volunteered, even though Nezumi had not asked.

“Does it bother him that you’re a decade younger?”

“I’m not a decade younger, I’m eight years younger.”

“Nine years on Friday.”

“His birthday is actually today. But drinks are on Friday.”

“If his birthday is today, why are you here instead of sucking his dick?”

“Nezumi,” Shion said, sighing. “Can you not?”

“Was that an unreasonable question?” Nezumi asked Safu.

“Leave me out of this,” Safu replied, not looking up from her own scarf, which actually did look like a scarf.

“He’s at work right now, I’m seeing him later. And Safu’s coming to drinks,” Shion said.

“Is that true?”

“Yes,” Safu said.

“Traitor,” Nezumi muttered.

“Nezumi, if that’s how you feel, just tell me, and I won’t talk about Rai in front of you again,” Shion said, leaning forward on his couch cushion and looking too seriously at Nezumi, who leaned back.

“That was a joke, Shion, remember when you used to have a sense of humor? Yes, I’ll come to birthday drinks. You know how much I love birthdays. And Rai. My two favorite things combined.”

“And drinks,” Safu pointed out.

“Oh, good point, my three favorite things combined.”

“He asked me to invite you, and I told him it was a bad idea, and he insisted. But if you don’t want to come, then I don’t want you to do it and be uncomfortable and make everyone else uncomfortable,” Shion said.

“Do you not want me to come?” Nezumi asked.

“I want you to do what you want to do.”

“Then I’m coming.”

“Great.”

“Great,” Nezumi repeated.

“Great,” Safu joined in, giggling when Nezumi glanced at her.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” Nezumi told her.

Safu pointed at Nezumi’s needles. “That’s purl again, you just made that mistake, you’re making the same mistake.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll fix it,” Nezumi snapped.

“You’re irritated already. Just don’t come,” Shion said.

“I’m coming unless you don’t want me to.”

“I said I wanted you to!”

“Then why are we still talking about this?”

Shion exhaled hard and stared back at the essay in his lap. Nezumi returned to his scarf. He tried to undo his incorrect purl stitch, but in the end, Safu had to take it from him again and show him how to fix it. Nezumi tried to pay attention, but he really wasn’t thinking about knitting at all.

*

Nezumi arrived at the bar a half hour after Shion told him to arrive. He spent that half hour debating whether or not to show up, and even now that he had shown up, he was thoroughly unsatisfied with his decision.

He could see Shion’s bright hair the moment he walked into the bar at a table at the back, but he didn’t go straight to it. He stopped at the bar and ordered a shot, downed it, then ordered a vodka on ice and took it with him to the back.

“Dammit,” Safu said, when she saw him. She sat at the end of the table, which was a booth sort of thing that was filled with Safu, Shion, Rai, and three people Nezumi did not know.

“Nice to see you too,” Nezumi said, watching Safu fish her wallet out of her purse, then extract ten bucks that she handed to Shion.

“Hi, you’re late,” Shion said, taking the money.

“Happy birthday,” Nezumi said, to Rai, who sat beside Shion, though it seemed as if he really was sitting on top of Shion, as they were squished together in the booth.

“Thanks!” Rai shouted. He was drunk, which was clear from the smile plastered on his face that he offered to Nezumi.

“Sit next to me,” Safu said, scooching over to make room. “Everyone else is Rai’s coworker from the school. Teachers.”

“You bet Shion I wouldn’t come?” Nezumi asked.

“I bet him you would come late but plastered. He bet you would come late but sober.”

“I’m amazed you lost.”

“Me too.”

Shion was pointing at Rai’s three coworkers and saying their names, and Nezumi nodded at all of them but didn’t really pay attention. The coworkers all sat closer to the wall in the middle of what seemed to be an intense conversation that Shion briefly interrupted with his introductions, while Shion sat with Rai half on his lap at the edge of the booth across the table from Safu and Nezumi.

“Nezumi! You came!” Rai said, reaching out to grasp Nezumi’s wrist when Nezumi set his drink on the table.

“He’s drunk,” Safu said.

“I couldn’t tell,” Nezumi replied, carefully extracting his wrist from Rai’s grip.

Shion had put away the money Safu had given him, and his arms were around Rai’s waist, seemingly as if to stop Rai from falling off his lap and out of the booth, but still, it seemed unnecessary. The man could surely balance himself just fine.

Rai leaned his head back until his cheek was next to Shion’s. “Nezumi came,” Rai told Shion in a stage whisper.

“I know, I see that.” 

“I thought he hated me.”

“I don’t know why you thought that, I’ve told you many times he doesn’t.”

“Do you hate me?” Rai asked, glancing at Nezumi.

“Not at all,” Nezumi replied. He picked up his drink and downed it, then made eye contact with a waitress, who bounced over. “Another one please.”

“I’ll do what he’s having,” Safu piped up.

“Me too!” Rai said.

“He won’t,” Shion said.

“He will. It’s his birthday,” Rai argued.

“Fine. And I’ll have one too please,” Shion said.

Rai’s coworkers also seemed plastered and did not order more drinks.

“They started earlier than us,” Safu explained.

“Let’s play a game,” Rai said, leaning his elbows onto the table.

The waitress dropped off their drinks, and Nezumi reminded himself to tip her extra for her speed.

Nezumi drank all of his at once, then half of Safu’s until she hit his arm. “You can have half of my next one,” he told her.

“Asshole,” she muttered.

“The game is called fuck, marry, kill. Have you heard of it?” Rai asked.

“Sure,” Safu said, but Nezumi shook his head.

“I name three people, and you have to choose who you’d fuck, who you’d marry, and who you’d kill.”

“You’ve heard of this?” Nezumi asked Safu, thinking this seemed like something Rai made up on the spot.

“My students use to play it,” Safu said.

“You’ve heard of it?” Nezumi asked Shion, who nodded.

“I don’t think we should play it though,” he said, but Rai didn’t seem to hear him.

“Nezumi. You first. Fuck, marry, kiss. Me, Shion, Safu.”

“Is it kiss or kill?” Nezumi asked.

“Kill,” Safu said.

“Are you sure?” 

Safu blinked at him. “No.”

“Kill, I meant kill,” Rai said, laughing.

“Someone else should go first, I don’t know how to play the game,” Nezumi said, looking for the waitress, who seemed to know he was looking, as she returned again.

The one time Nezumi was glad for his eternal youth was when it came to getting drinks.

“Another, and you can keep them coming,” he told her.

“Of course,” the waitress replied.

“I’m fast, so keep up,” Nezumi told her, smiling at her, and she giggled.

“Nezumi,” Shion warned.

“Why don’t you go first?” Nezumi told Shion when the waitress left. “Fuck, marry, kill. Me, Safu, Rai.”

“I’m not going to play this game.” 

“Party pooper,” Safu said, sipping her drink.

The waitress returned with another for Nezumi, who drank half of it. He was starting to feel his previous drinks and was so relieved for that.

“Why won’t you play?” Rai asked, turning his head to look at Shion.

Shion’s eyebrows creased. “Let’s play another game.”

“Why won’t you play this one?”

“Babe,” Shion said, and Nezumi finished his drink completely, “I don’t want to play this one.”

“I want you to play this one. Would you kill me?” Rai slurred.

“No.”

“Yes, you would.”

“He’d kill me,” Safu volunteered.

“He loves you,” Rai said.

“I love _you,_ ” Shion told him, and then he looked immediately at Nezumi, who was looking at Rai to see if Rai had any sort of reaction to such a confession.

But Rai didn’t have a reaction to such a confession, which meant he’d heard it before. It was normal too, just like _babe._

Safu slid her drink a few inches so it was in front of Nezumi. He picked it up, finished it, set it back down.

“Nezumi—”

“Fine, I’ll go first,” Nezumi interrupted, before Shion could say whatever crap he was going to say. “Fuck Rai. Marry Shion. Kill Safu.”

“And after I let you drink my drink,” Safu whispered to him.

“If I killed Rai, he’d take it personally,” Nezumi whispered back.

“And I won’t?” Safu asked, but Nezumi knew she was joking, and he was so relieved for her, so relieved that she’d slid closer to him on the booth when Shion had said _I love you_ so that her side was against his. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He could lean on her, she was saying. She was there for him, she was saying. He wasn’t alone, she was saying.

“Why don’t you then?” Rai was asking, nearly lying on the table now. The waitress dropped off another drink for Nezumi, and he picked it up before Rai could knock it off the table.

“Rai, sit up,” Shion said, trying to pull Rai back up.

“Why don’t I what? Fuck you?” Nezumi asked, trying to pay attention.

“Marry Shion,” Rai said.

“Or kill me,” Safu said. “Really, now’s a good time.”

“Is that part of the game? Explaining?” Nezumi asked.

“No,” Safu said.

“Good, then my turn’s over. You’re next,” Nezumi said to Rai.

“Marry Shion,” Rai said.

“So many proposals you’re getting today,” Safu told him.

Shion downed his drink. “I hate this game.”

“Kill Safu,” Rai said.

Safu started laughing. She was a lightweight, Nezumi knew, because she, like Shion, hardly ever drank.

Rai looked at Nezumi. “Fuck you.”

“We’re done, we’re done this,” Shion said loudly. 

“Why does everyone want to kill me? Is it because you’re all gay? Wait, aren’t you down to clown with anyone?” Safu asked, poking Nezumi’s side.

“I already told you why I killed you.”

“Oh, right. To stay in Rai’s good graces. Yes, yes, that’s very important. But really, like really, in the real world, you’d fuck me.”

“Of course,” Nezumi said, and Safu laughed again.

“My turn!” she announced, taking Nezumi’s drink and finishing it before he could grab it from her. “Marry—Wait, I have to think.”

“Another one?” It was the waitress again, this wonderful, attentive waitress, back at their table. Looking up at her, Nezumi couldn’t decide if he wanted to marry or fuck her.

“Of course,” he told her.

“Please stop,” Shion groaned.

“Another one for me too!” Rai announced.

“Okay, okay, I’m ready,” Safu said, her elbows on the table propping her up. “Marry Nezumi.”

Nezumi tried to focus on her. “Really?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Safu slurred at him. “It’s only because Shion already got married twice, and I’m nobody’s third wife.”

“How kind,” Nezumi said dryly, pulling one of his old glasses away from her, as she kept trying to drink out of it, and it was empty now.

“Fuck Shion. Kill Rai. Sorry Rai. But I can’t kill Shion or Nezumi. They’re my people.”

The waitress dropped off Nezumi’s drink. He didn’t know which one it was by now and did not care one bit. Shion reached for it the moment the waitress set it down, but Nezumi was faster.

“Nezumi, don’t.”

“Why?” Nezumi asked him, and Shion didn’t say anything.

“Your turn, babe,” Rai said, looking at Shion.

“I told you, I’m not doing this.”

“You have to.”

“Why?”

“To prove it to me.”

“To prove what to you?” 

Rai looked at him for a long moment. “You know what,” he finally said.

Nezumi sipped his drink. Safu leaned on him, and he leaned on Safu. He felt good, warm, unfocused. Drunk. He offered his drink to Safu, who sipped from it before sliding it back across the table to him.

“I’d marry you,” Shion said, across the table, to Rai.

“He’s going to kill me,” Safu whispered to Nezumi.

“It’s a rough night for you,” Nezumi whispered back, letting her take another sip of his drink just because of that.

“Are you lying?” Rai asked Shion.

Shion touched Rai’s face, and Rai did have a good face, Nezumi could see that even when he was drunk. “No. I’m not lying. I’ll marry you. I’ll fuck Safu. And I’ll kill Nezumi, because he wants to die.”

Shion said this last bit looking at Nezumi, who grinned and raised his drink off the table in a toast. “That’s a great fucking answer,” he said. Shion swam in front of him, and Nezumi was glad he couldn’t make out the man’s expression.

“Wait a second,” Safu murmured, pushing herself off the table, where she’d been half lying. “I’m not dead in this one?”

“You lived,” Nezumi told her, and she picked up one of the empty glasses to clink against Nezumi’s, then tried to drink out of it and frowned.

“Fuck, there’s nothing in here.”

“Take some of this,” Nezumi told her, taking another sip of his before giving it to her.

“Is everyone satisfied? Can we move on from this game?” Shion asked.

“How’re you going to kill me?” Nezumi asked him.

“We don’t have to explain. We established that was in the rules,” Shion said back.

“Hey,” Rai said, looking at Shion, who looked at him. “I believe you,” he said.

“Good,” Shion said.

Rai leaned forward, and then he kissed Shion, and Nezumi watched them, watched Shion kiss him back, and from the other end of the table that Nezumi had forgotten existed, Rai’s coworkers started cheering and whooping and whistling, and Rai pulled away from Shion, and Nezumi decided it was time for him to leave.

He looked at Safu. “It’s time for me to leave,” he told her.

“Yeah,” she slurred. She had her chin propped up by her palm, her elbow resting on the table.

“You should leave too, you’re drunk.”

“Yeah,” she said again. She was looking at Shion and Rai, who’d stopped kissing, and then she looked at Nezumi. “You should leave,” she told him.

“Yeah, let’s leave.”

“Yeah,” Safu said.

The waitress was back. “Another?” 

Nezumi shook his head. “Checks. Check, I would love to have a check.”

“Put mine on his,” Safu said, which Nezumi was fine with. Money meant nothing to him. He’d been alive for a hundred and twenty-six years, and he’d been working for over a century of that, and he didn’t spend his money on anything because he didn’t care about anything, he hadn’t cared about anything, not until Shion, who was across the table kissing some guy he’d probably marry, some guy he loved, some guy that would die beside him.

“Put the whole table on mine,” Nezumi said, and there were more cheers from the coworker side.

“Nezumi, don’t do that,” Shion said.

“Why the fuck not?” Nezumi asked him, then looked at the waitress again and smiled. “Go ahead.”

The waitress nodded, confirmed some number of drinks that Nezumi agreed to. He had no idea, and he didn’t give a shit. He gave her his card, and she left, and then she came back with a receipt that was over three hundred fifty dollars.

In the tip line, Nezumi wrote the same amount that the check had been.

“You’re doing that wrong, you write the tip there,” Safu said, leaning over his shoulder.

“I did.”

“No, that’s the full amount.”

“I know. I’m tipping her a hundred percent.”

“You’re so generous,” Safu gushed.

“Nezumi, you shouldn’t do that, you’re drunk and you’re not thinking,” Shion said.

Nezumi ignored him. He held up the receipt book, and then the waitress was back.

“When’s your shift over?” Nezumi asked her.

She laughed and bit her lip. “I’m closing shift, I’ve got a while. Why?”

“Let me see that receipt again,” Nezumi said, and she gave it to him.

Nezumi wrote his number on the bottom of it.

“Wait, that’s not what you meant to tip, is it?” the waitress asked, looking over his shoulder at the receipt.

“Of course it is. You were great. But that number there, at the bottom, that’s not money. Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a phone number,” the waitress said, her hand over her lips, her eyes wide.

“Do you know what to do with it?”

The waitress giggled. “I think so, yeah.”

“Okay. Good. Whenever your shift ends, doesn’t matter what time.”

“Okay,” the waitress whispered, giggling more, and then she walked away from the table, looking back at them and walking into another table, then giggling again and running to another waitress to show her the receipt.

“That was fun. Go flirt with someone else, it’s like watching an Olympic sport,” Safu said, pushing him out the booth.

Nezumi clambered out, steadying himself against the edge of the table. He looked at Shion, who was watching him silently, and then he turned to Rai and held out his hand.

“I believe it’s your birthday,” he said.

“It is,” Rai said, shaking Nezumi’s hand.

“Happy birthday. I hope it’s the best year of your life.”

Rai laughed. “Yeah? You too. I hope it’s the best year of your life.”

Nezumi was absolutely certain it would not be.

“Rai, can you let me out? I want to call Nezumi and Safu Ubers, they’re too drunk to do it themselves.”

“Sure, babe,” Rai said, getting up off Shion, stumbling into Nezumi, who caught him, and then Shion got up from the booth, helped Rai sit back down, and pointed to the exit.

“Go,” he said, so Nezumi went with Safu beside him, her arm linked through his.

Outside, the air was cool and felt incredible. Nezumi lifted his face to it.

“Let’s go to a club, the three amigos!” Safu said. “Wait, where’s Shion?”

At that moment, Shion came out the bar’s door with two glasses of water. He gave one to Safu and pointed to the sidewalk. “Sit down, Safu, and drink this.”

Safu didn’t argue. Shion waited for her to sit against the side of the bar, then held out the second glass to Nezumi.

“You put poison in there to kill me with?” Nezumi asked him, leaning against the side of the bar and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I told you not to come. I told you not to, Nezumi, you don’t listen,” Shion said, his voice strained.

“You really love him?” Nezumi asked.

“I told you not to come.”

“Tell me. I’ll be happy for you. If it’s true, I’ll be happy for you.”

Shion’s hand was in his hair, his knuckles tightening. “Please drink this water.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“I’m not, Nezumi, that was a game. It was a stupid game, and I didn’t want to play it.”

“But loving him isn’t a game.”

“Nezumi.”

“That’s real.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“I’ll be happy for you, Your Majesty. I’ll be so fucking happy for you.”

Shion dropped his hand from his hair. “Go to my apartment. You can sleep on the couch. It’s close by, and your apartment is too far. Go with Safu, you can both make sure the other gets there safe. It would make me feel better.”

“Why won’t you tell me you love him?” Nezumi asked. “Cause it’s all a lie? Cause you don’t even like him? Cause it’s just to make me jealous, cause you’re pissed at me for breaking up with you, still, after however long it’s been, so you’re doing all this shit to make me jealous, to make me feel like shit? Is that why you won’t say it?”

“I love him!” Shion shouted. “I love Rai, I do, I’m in love with him, it’s not a ploy, it’s not a lie, it’s reality, it’s how things are now, it’s how things are going to be now because loving you is hard and miserable and awful and hurts and nothing good comes out of it cause you’re selfish and cruel, and loving him is easy and simple and I don’t have to worry he’ll break my heart, I don’t have to worry he’ll toy with me, I don’t have to worry about anything with him, he makes it so easy to love him, he makes it so fucking easy, he’s kind to me and when he says he wants me to be happy, he means it, so yeah, I love him, Nezumi, okay? Are you happy? Now drink this water and go home!”

There was nothing but silence, and then there was Safu’s voice, small and coming from the ground.

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi looked down. Safu was sitting on the ground with her hands raised.

“Help me up,” she said, so Nezumi reached down and pulled her up, and when she was standing she turned to Shion and slapped him hard.

The sound of it was louder than Nezumi expected, and someone across the street said, “Oh shit! That girl just slapped the shit out of that albino guy!” and Shion stumbled and spilled half the water out of the glass but caught his balance and held his hand over his face.

“You can love someone else without being a dick about it,” Safu snapped at him, her hand in Nezumi’s now. “Come on, we’re going.”

She pulled him, and Nezumi didn’t resist. He felt numb, and wondered for a moment if he was the one that’d been slapped, but no, that was Shion, Nezumi had the image in his mind still of Shion with his hand over his cheek and his eyes wet and the glass of water in his other hand half empty.

“Where are we going?” Nezumi asked vaguely. In his head were the words _selfish and cruel_ and _miserable and awful and hurts._ In his head were the words _nothing good comes out of it._

“We’re going home,” Safu told him. “But first we’re going across the street, and then I’ll call an Uber from there. A safe distance.”

Nezumi didn’t protest. He didn’t care where he ended up. In his head were the words _he makes it so easy to love him_. In his head word were the words _Are you happy now?_

“No,” he said, and Safu tightened her arm around his.

“Hm? What was that?”

“I’m not happy,” Nezumi said.

“Not now, no. But tonight won’t last forever,” she told him.

Nezumi was almost certain it would, but he didn’t see the point in arguing with her. He didn’t see the point.

*

Nezumi had no idea where he was when he woke, but it smelled like maple syrup and sausages.

He didn’t sit up immediately. He looked around and tried to remember where he was. He was vaguely certain he hadn’t been here before, as nothing was familiar. The bedsheets were lavender, the walls were a light green, and there were picture frames on it of people Nezumi did not know.

He rolled over. The space beside him was empty, but there was a dent in the pillow. He pulled the lavender sheet up from his body and observed that he was naked.

He was hungover, too, but there was a glass of water on the nightstand with pills, so Nezumi took these and down the entire glass and waited several minutes, smelling the syrup and sausages, then slowly sitting up.

His head pounded, but it wasn’t unbearable. He’d certainly had worse, and the pills would take care of the current headache.

Nezumi slipped off the bed, stumbled, then righted himself and looked for his clothes. He found his boxers and jeans, but not his shirt, so he ventured out of the room without it.

Across the bedroom, another doorway was open of what was clearly a bathroom, so Nezumi went into that, shut the door, and turned on the lights.

He had never been in this bathroom before. The shower curtain had words on it, but they were all in different languages. Nezumi forgot he needed to pee and looked for the Japanese, having to pull the curtain because the Japanese was hidden by a fold of it. It said _shower_.

Nezumi went to the toilet, which had a lavender toilet cover. He peed, then washed his hands and face and stole a glob of toothpaste before using some of the mouthwash. He blinked at himself in the mirror before running his fingers through his hair. He looked more or less all right, and he left the bathroom. 

He followed the smells of breakfast foods into what was clearly a kitchen, and there was a girl in front of the stove with her back to him, singing lightly under her breath what Nezumi recognized after a few seconds as the song “One Day More” from _Les Miserables_. Nezumi looked around, found his shirt on the back of a chair at the table, so he grabbed that and was pulling it on when the girl turned around.

“Oh! You scared me, I didn’t hear you.”

“Sorry,” Nezumi offered. It was the waitress from the bar, and Nezumi tried to remember her name.

“Chie,” she said. “My name.”

Nezumi smiled sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said again.

“That’s okay. I don’t know yours either,” she said, smiling back. She had a nice smile, but she looked young, and this was worrisome.

“Nezumi.”

“Nezumi,” she repeated. “Interesting.”

“ _Les Mis_?” Nezumi asked, to avoid asking her age, and Chie pressed her hand to her lips.

“Oh, god, you heard me. It’s my favorite musical. You know it?”

Nezumi stepped closer to her, kissed her because her lips looked soft like Shion’s, and her cheeks turned pink when he stepped back from her. He leaned against the counter and watched her prod a pan of eggs with her spatula.

“I know it,” Nezumi confirmed, then couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Can I ask—How old are you?”

The girl tucked her hair behind her ear. “You asked me last night.”

“Oh, good,” Nezumi said, relieved. If he’d checked the night before, he wouldn’t have had sex with a minor. “Remind me though.”

“Nineteen. You even asked for my ID.”

Nezumi smiled wanly. He hadn’t had sex with a nineteen-year-old in what had to be decades. “Precautions. You look young.”

“That’s okay. I liked it. No one ever does that, it was interesting.”

“You live alone?” Nezumi asked, looking around. Nineteen could have meant parents.

Chie nodded. “I ran away from home when I was fifteen. Shitty home life, that old stuff.”

“It’s a nice place.” 

“Thanks. Waitressing isn’t bad. And your tip basically paid half my rent for this month.”

“I’m glad.”

“You don’t regret it then? Tipping me that much?”

Nezumi shrugged. “You were a good waitress.”

Chie laughed, then tipped her chin to a cupboard beside Nezumi. “Want to get plates? If you can stay for breakfast, that is. Maybe that was presumptuous.”

“I can stay. Smells really good,” Nezumi said. He had not ended up at someone else’s place in a long time, preferring to take them to his own apartment. He didn’t worry about getting robbed—he had nothing to be robbed—and he preferred not having to figure out how to get home in the mornings.

But Chie was cute, and Nezumi wasn’t in a rush to return to his real life.

He grabbed plates, and they loaded them with eggs and sausage and French toast.

“I love American food,” Chie said, when they sat down. “I want to go to America and be a chef. Like in one of those cooking competition shows, they have so many, and it’ll really get my name out there. Except I don’t have any cooking knowledge, so I’m saving up for culinary school. Oh! I forgot coffee, I’m an idiot, give me a second.”

Chie jumped back up, and Nezumi ate and watched her bounce around her kitchen to make coffee. He had no idea what time it was and didn’t care at all.

She returned to the table while the coffee brewed and looked at Nezumi in a curious way.

“What?” he asked her, even though he could guess what she was thinking.

“I feel like I know you.” 

“You might. You like musicals, and I’ve been in a few.”

Chie’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh! Eternal Eve! I’m so stupid, I didn’t realize—but that’s you, right?”

“The one and only.”

“Holy shit,” she breathed, then covered her mouth again, her cheeks pinking. “Sorry, I sound so stupid probably.”

“It’s fine.”

“I saw you in _The Phantom of the Opera_ , but I was eight, so I really didn’t remember you.”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” Chie said, smiling, then bouncing back up to get the coffee. “Milk or sugar?”

“Just sugar,” Nezumi said. He’d taken his coffee black until he’d met Karan, and now he needed sugar in it if he wasn’t pairing it with a baked good.

Chie brought two mugs for the table. Nezumi’s had an orange cat on it and American words.

“That’s Garfield, from an American cartoon. I’m studying up on American culture to be prepared.”

“Can you read that?” Nezumi asked, twisting the cup to show her the words, but she didn’t even look at them.

“It says, ‘I Hate Mondays.’ That’s like his slogan.”

“The cat has a slogan?”

Chie giggled, then talked more about Garfield, and then about the dog that was on her cup, and then about some other things until they’d finished breakfast, and Nezumi offered to help her with the dishes.

“Chie, can you fill me in? I remember nothing from last night,” he said, squeezing more soap onto her sponge.

“Hm, do you remember being at the bar with your friends?”

“I remember.”

“Then you paid for everyone’s drinks, and you and that girl and that guy with the white hair left.”

“I remember.”

“He shouted at you,” Chie said, and Nezumi glanced at her.

“You heard that?”

She bit her lip. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Nezumi didn’t let himself think about it. “Next.”

“The girl slapped the guy who shouted at you, then he came back into the bar, and you and the girl left. That’s all I know until I called you around two in the morning, and you picked up, told me to text you my address, so I did, and then you were here. I’m assuming you took an Uber. And we—um—do you remember?”

Nezumi shook his head. “Had sex?” he offered.

“Yeah.”

“Was it good?” Nezumi asked, and the girl blushed.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Then we fell asleep, and that’s it. Oh, and your phone kept lighting up, but I’m not sure if you noticed that. The sound was off, but the screen kept glowing.”

“It’s in the bedroom?”

“Yeah,” Chie said.

“I’m going to check it, okay?”

“Sure.”

Nezumi left the last dish—the pan she’d used for eggs—in the sink, dried his hands, and went to the bedroom. He pressed his home button, and the screen lit up to ten missed calls from Shion and two from Safu, along with texts.

He ignored the texts from Shion and opened Safu’s.

_Couch is suspiciously empty even though it’s much too early for you to be awake. Did you sneak off with the waitress last night? Let me know you’re okay. xo_

He texted her back, _all good. with the waitress._

He opened Shion’s conversation only to make sure some sort of emergency hadn’t occurred and skimmed what was a string of texts. After seeing _sorry_ a number of times, he figured no one had died and slipped his phone in his pocket without reading them.

He returned to the kitchen, where Chie had finished the dishes and was sitting at the table with her mug in her hands, watching him walk in.

“Hi,” she said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She bit her lip. Nezumi sat in his chair and leaned forward.

“I’m going to leave now,” he told her, and she nodded.

“You’re not going to call me again,” she said, sounding resigned.

“No.”

“Because you love that guy. With the white hair.”

Nezumi’s jaw clenched. He made himself relax and nodded. “And you’re too young for me,” he added, and Chie giggled.

“After I showed you my ID last night, you let me see yours. You’re twenty-five.”

“I’m much older than twenty-five.”

“How much?”

“If I tell you, you might freak out,” Nezumi said.

Chie bit her lip again.

“We used a condom last night, right?” Nezumi asked, and Chie’s eyes widened.

“Do you have AIDs?”

Nezumi laughed. “No, don’t worry, I don’t have anything, I promise. But I don’t remember last night, and I have to make sure.”

“If I get pregnant, will the baby be immortal?”

“I really hope not,” Nezumi said.

Chie tilted her head but didn’t ask for elaboration. Instead, she said, “We used a condom. You insisted last night too. You’re very responsible, even when you’re drunk. That’s good.”

“I’ve had practice.”

“I guess I’m just one in a long line of women,” Chie sighed.

“The line of men is longer, if that’s any consolation.”

Chie blushed and bit her lip and said nothing.

“I don’t usually have sex with people as young as you. I want to make sure you’re okay before I leave. You’re okay, right? I didn’t fuck you up or anything?”

“I’m not that young.”

“You’re very young. I’m not entirely sure your ID is real, and I’m scared to check now that I’m sober,” Nezumi admitted.

“It’s real,” Chie insisted.

“I’m trusting you here.”

“It’s real,” Chie said again.

Nezumi nodded and stood up. “Okay. Good. Don’t go home with strangers and don’t invite strangers into your home. That was a terrible idea. I could have been a lunatic. You could be dead.”

“It’s patronizing that you’re lecturing me. Especially after you fucked me last night,” Chie said, standing up too, and there was something reassuring about her cursing. It made her seem older in a way that her lip biting and easy blushes did not.

“I’m allowed to be patronizing. I’m incredibly old. Where’s your nearest metro?”

“I can walk you to it,” Chie said, so Nezumi waited for her to grab a coat and put on shoes and then find Nezumi’s boots for him, which were scattered about the living room, and then they were heading out Chie’s building.

Nezumi looked around as he left the apartment, but none of it was familiar. He’d blacked out completely the night before.

Chie chattered about the culinary schools she was looking into as they walked, and then they were at the metro, and she was silent again and biting her lip.

“This is it,” Nezumi told her. “Remember, don’t wait for me to call. I’m not going to.”

“If only you weren’t in love with that guy with the white hair.”

“If only,” Nezumi agreed.

“Can you me give a goodbye kiss?” Chie asked, and Nezumi thought of Shion on the rooftop, _Would you kiss me if I asked you to?_

Chie was biting her lip again. Nezumi cupped his hand along her jaw to tilt her face up, waited for her to stop biting her lip, then leaned down and kissed her. She smelled good, like vanilla. He leaned back.

“Bye, Chie,” he said.

“Bye, Nezumi,” she whispered, her hand over her lips making her whisper nearly inaudible.

Nezumi turned from her and headed down the steps to the metro. She was the first stranger he could remember giving his name to, and he wasn’t sure why he had. There was something innocent to her, and Nezumi knew only that he didn’t want to have ruined her life. He hoped she hadn’t been lying about her age, he hoped she hadn’t been lying about the condom. Nezumi had ruined enough lives. He didn’t need to add another.

*

Nezumi had just finished dressing after getting out of the shower when he heard his front door opening, which was alarming until he remembered Karan had a key.

He left his room, expecting to see her, but instead there was Shion, and behind him, panting, Safu.

“I tried to stop him!” Safu breathed.

“She did,” Shion said, closing the front door behind him. “She even tried to throw me down the stairs.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Safu said, falling into one of Nezumi’s chairs.

“What are you two doing here?” Nezumi asked, collecting his wet hair from his neck and pulling the strands out from underneath the neck of his t-shirt. “Karan gave you my key?”

“You wouldn’t answer my texts or calls.” Shion’s cheek was pink, and it took Nezumi a moment to remember Safu had slapped him.

“I texted Safu,” Nezumi said.

“I told him. I showed him the text too.”

“Yeah, I saw that text,” Shion said. “You slept with the waitress? Come on, Nezumi, she’s got to be fifteen at most.”

“It’s not any of your business, actually, but she was nineteen.”

“Of course she’d say that!”

“Get out of my apartment,” Nezumi snapped, then glared at Safu. “You too.”

“I’m on your side here. Although fifteen? Nezumi, that’s really gross and terrible.”

“She was not fifteen,” Nezumi said tightly. “Now get out.”

“Did you read my texts? Or listen to my voicemails?”

Nezumi walked past Shion and opened his front door wide. “Get out, or I will throw you out.”

“I said things to you last night that weren’t fair and weren’t true. I was angry and frustrated and I wanted to justify it, loving him, but I shouldn’t have to justify that, I should be able to love him—”

“I really do not give a shit that you love your boyfriend. That’s how it’s supposed to go. I’m hungover and not in the mood for guests. Get out, don’t make me hurt you.”

“I shouldn’t have compared the way I love you to the way I love him. First of all, it’s not even comparable, and second, I lied, I lied about how it feels to love you because I have to lie to make it easier to get over you, I have to pretend it was hard and terrible and—”

Nezumi reached for Shion, who jumped out of the way, and then was on the other side of the kitchen table from Nezumi.

“You think I’m going to chase you around this table?” Nezumi demanded.

“The easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life is love you,” Shion insisted. “It’s easier than breathing, it’s easier than anything, it’s the only thing I know how to do without thinking, that’s why it’s so hard to stop—”

“I’ll throw a chair at you, knock you out, and drag you out of here,” Nezumi threatened.

“Everything good in my life is because of you. You are everything good in my life, and maybe you’re the worst parts of it too, but you’re the best parts, you’re the parts when I’ve felt most alive, and most myself, and happiest—”

Nezumi picked up a chair, and Safu shrieked, cutting off Shion’s monologue, but Shion didn’t flinch.

“You’re not going to throw that at me.”

“Keep talking and see.”

“You’d never hurt me. You’d kill yourself before you hurt me.”

“That’s not saying much, seeing as I’d happily kill myself,” Nezumi snapped.

“Then throw it,” Shion said calmly.

Nezumi held the chair a second longer, then slammed it back down on the floor, and Safu shrieked again.

“Sorry,” she said, when Nezumi looked at her. “This is all so dramatic, I think I got swept up in it.”

“That’s fine. Just leave. Both of you.”

“I can’t leave with you hating me. We were in a good place, we were finally good,” Shion said.

“I don’t hate you, Shion. I just don’t want you breaking into my apartment.”

“You hate me. You think I hate you.”

“Wrong on both accounts.”

“Can I just ask—How do you know the waitress was nineteen?” Safu piped up. “Do you ask everyone you sleep with how old they are?”

“Safu, is now the time for this?” Shion asked her.

“Aren’t you curious?”

Nezumi sat in the chair he’d threatened to throw at Shion and pressed his temples, closing his eyes.

“Do you have a headache?” Shion asked.

“Yes.”

Nezumi heard Shion’s footsteps, and then his door closing, and he looked up, but Shion was still there, he’d just closed the front door. He disappeared somewhere else in Nezumi’s apartment, then came back with Advil.

“I took pills.”

“Advil?”

“I don’t know what they were, the waitress gave them to me. I don’t have a hangover headache, I have a headache from dealing with you.”

Shion sat at the table across from him.

“You shouldn’t take pills without knowing what they are,” Safu said.

“Yeah? Why not? What will happen to me?”

Safu blinked at him, and Nezumi sighed.

“I didn’t thank you last night, so thanks for slapping Shion on my behalf.”

“It felt good. I’ve never slapped anyone before.”

“It was impressive.”

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi glanced at Shion. “Don’t worry, Your Majesty. I know I’m responsible for the best parts of your life. You didn’t break my heart last night. I knew it was all lies. You’re a terrible liar, I’ve always told you so.”

Shion looked at him carefully. “I do love him though. That wasn’t a lie.”

“You don’t need my permission to love anyone. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic production every time it happens.”

“It’s not an ‘every time it happens’ kind of thing. It’s a big deal to me. And I don’t want to hide it from you. But I feel like I have to.”

“What are you saying here? Are you asking permission to make out with Rai in my presence? Is he actually standing in the hallway waiting for my permission to come into my house and make sweet love to you on this kitchen table?”

Shion frowned. “Can you be mature about this?”

“Mature is not coming in here and confessing your love to me when you’ve got a boyfriend waiting for you.”

“I wasn’t confessing my love to you!”

“What would Rai think if he heard all of that? I know you’re worried about hurting my feelings, but I’m a big boy. I’m not having a great time listening to you confess your love for this guy, but I can handle it. You can’t be coming here every time you think I’m upset and telling me what it was like to love me. That’s not right for Rai, or me, or you. We’re fine, and we’re always going to be fine. I’m telling you I want you to move on. If I don’t appear ecstatic witnessing you moving on from the front seat, that doesn’t change this fact.”

“You’re pretending not to be hurt when I know that you are, and I don’t want you to lie to me.”

“I’m not pretending not to be hurt. I’m telling you not to worry about hurting me, and not to apologize for having a relationship when I’m the one who broke up with you. You said you didn’t want to be pathetic, right?”

Shion covered his face in his hands and nodded.

“Then don’t. Go ahead, be happy with your boyfriend. I don’t need to be present at any future birthdays, and we’ll be fine. There’s no need to be so dramatic all the time.”

Shion let his hands fall from his face.

“Agreed?” Nezumi asked.

“Agreed,” Shion said quietly.

“Good.”

“Now that that’s settled, can I ask about the age thing?” Safu asked.

“I card them if they look young,” Nezumi told her flatly.

“Like a liquor store.”

“Sure.”

“You carded that waitress?”

“Yeah.”

“And she was nineteen?”

“That’s what it said.”

“That’s really responsible, Nezumi.”

“Always a delight to have your approval, Safu. Now seriously, get out, I was going to sleep before you two broke in.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Shion said.

“Did I ask you to tell me the time?” Nezumi asked back.

Shion sighed and stood up, and Safu followed suit.

“Return that key to Karan, it’s her copy,” Nezumi called after him.

“I made a copy of her copy,” Shion said back, then was gone from Nezumi’s apartment.

Nezumi pressed his hands to his face. The apartment was quiet without Shion’s nonsense, without his fuss, without his dramatics, without his confessions, his crazy words— _Everything good in my life is because of you._

Nezumi wondered what words Shion would have said if Nezumi never stopped him. If Nezumi let him go on and on and on and say everything that brain of his conjured up. What else would he say? What else did he think? What else was he feeling?

Nezumi thought he could drive himself crazy, imagining all of it—not that any of it mattered. It was all probably better left unsaid, anyway.

*


	19. Chapter 19

The next time Nezumi saw Rai, Nezumi was at Safu and Shion’s apartment helping Safu rearrange the furniture in her room. She’d texted him earlier that week, asking when he was free for heavy lifting, as she’d found an article about fengshui she seemed to find incredibly convincing on the merits of changing up one’s living space, so here Nezumi was.

She had drawn a diagram to scale that they were following, or trying to, but Safu wasn’t easily satisfied.

“It looks different in the diagram,” she insisted, after Nezumi declared the rearranging complete.

“That’s because the diagram is drawn with pencil, and these are real life objects. It’s not going to look the same.”

“It should still look the same. It’s the bed. It’s too far from the window wall and too close the closet wall.”

“Safu, we are not moving that bed again. That thing weighs a thousand pounds.”

“Hardly. Come on, you came to help, didn’t you?” Safu asked.

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two hours?” Nezumi moaned, but he walked around to the other side of the bed, pushing his fingers at his forehead, then frowning and dropping his hand.

Safu had lent him hair clips to clip his bangs out his eyes once they kept matting down on his forehead with sweat, but he kept forgetting they were clipped up and out of habit pushing his fingers against his forehead to then realize there was nothing to push away.

He tightened the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt, which he’d tied around his waist so that he only wore a sleeveless undershirt and joggers, the legs of which he’d pushed up as far as they would go, which was only to his knees.

“Stop sweating on my mattress,” Safu warned.

“Aren’t you rich? You can’t afford air conditioning?”

“It makes it too cold! The windows are open, we’re getting a lovely breeze.”

“I’m going to die of heat stroke,” Nezumi muttered.

“Then you can thank me for gifting you the sweet release of death by working faster and moving this mattress to the right place,” Safu said, and Nezumi laughed, feeling a bit delirious.

They lifted the bed a few inches closer to the window wall, and Safu was reexamining her diagram and frowning in a way that was not promising when a bell rang throughout the apartment, making Nezumi jump.

“Shit, what was that?” Nezumi asked, clutching his chest.

“The doorbell. Maybe Shion forgot his keys? He’d have texted us. Oh, wait, where are our phones? Nezumi, I think our phones might be under the bed.”

“Leave them,” Nezumi said.

“No, I found them, they’re on the desk. No texts from Shion. Weird.”

Safu left the room, and Nezumi trailed behind her, stopping at the kitchen for water and watching Safu go to the front door, where she pressed the button of an intercom Nezumi had not previously known was there.

“Safu and Shion’s residence,” she said.

“It’s Rai.”

“Oh, hey. Shion’s not here, he’s in class until late tonight.”

“I know. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh. Okay. Come in then.”

Safu pressed another button, then came into the kitchen. “That’s Rai.”

“I heard.”

“If you want to leave out the fire escape, you can. But I think it’d be beneficial for your cause if you stayed.”

“My cause?” Nezumi asked.

Safu waved her hand as if to gesture up and down his body. “You’re all sweaty and muscle-y looking right now. It’s hot. He’ll be jealous.”

Nezumi pressed his glass of ice water to his cheek to cool himself. “I’m not trying to make him jealous. I’m being the mature party.” 

“Shion’s not here, you don’t need to pretend around me,” Safu said.

Nezumi just shook his head and switched his glass to his other cheek. When Safu opened the fridge to stick her head in it and moan with pleasure at the cool air, Nezumi glanced down at his arms and contemplated his own muscles. They did seem veinier than usual currently.

“Did you know he was coming? Did you plan all this?” Nezumi asked, suspicious.

“Did I ask you to help me rearrange my room under the guise of fengshui so you’d get sweaty and strip to an undershirt that would showcase your glistening muscles and then plan for Rai to come here at this exact moment so he’d be jealous?”

“That seems like something you’d do.”

“I think you’re overestimating how much I care about what Rai thinks of you and how much I’m willing to mess with my own furniture to achieve such ends.”

“Or I’m estimating accurately,” Nezumi countered.

There was a knock on the door, and Safu closed the fridge. “Want to get that?”

“This is your scheme, you get it,” Nezumi said.

Safu just rolled her eyes and went to the door.

“Hi, Rai.”

“Hi. Is this a bad time?” he asked, coming in.

“Just moving furniture. Nezumi’s here helping me,” Safu said, at the same time Rai looked at him.

“Hey,” Nezumi said.

“Ah, hi,” Rai said, blinking and rubbing the back of his neck the way he did. “I didn’t—I thought it’d just be Safu.”

“Can I get you tea? Coffee? Water?” Safu asked, leading Rai to the stools at the kitchen counter. “Sit, make yourself at home.”

“Tea sounds good. I really just came to talk to you,” Rai said, looking at Safu but glancing periodically at Nezumi, his eyes slipping over Nezumi’s body in a way that was entirely enjoyable.

Nezumi moved his glass of water from his cheek to his forehead even though it’d mostly lost its cool. “I’ll get that tea going, you guys chat.”  
Nezumi set his water down and went to the stove for the kettle, then returned to the sink, filling it up while Rai continued to peek at him.

Safu had settled on the stool beside his. “What’s up? Planning a birthday party for Shion?”

“There’s no way his birthday is coming up,” Nezumi countered.

“He hates calendars,” Safu said to Rai.

“He just had a birthday.”

“I’m not going to explain to you the way time works, Nezumi.”

“Uh, it’s not about his birthday,” Rai cut in, “but we should talk about that at some point. It’s about—Um—It’s just, I’m not sure I should be saying this in front of Nezumi. It’s not something I’ve talked to Shion about yet.” 

Nezumi had filled the kettle and put it on the stove. He lit the stove beneath it, then turned, stepped to the side of the stove, and leaned against the counter top. “If it’s a secret, I’m perfectly happy not to tell him.”

“It’s not a secret, really. It’s… Well, he lives here. And he loves living here, and I know that. I think he might think it’s moving too fast if we got a place of our own, but I was thinking—it’s a big apartment, and of course I’d pay rent, and it’s your place, Safu, so it’s completely up to you, which is why I’m coming to you before I even breach the topic with Shion—”

Nezumi understood at the same time Safu said, “You want to move in here.”  
Rai held up his hands. “Just an idea to consider, completely up to you, you have all the time you want to think about it. Even just having a drawer in his dresser is an option. I sleep over here enough that I don’t think, you know, having a toothbrush here, my shampoo in the shower, some space in the fridge—it’s reasonable, right?” Rai asked.

“It’s reasonable,” Safu said slowly.

Nezumi tried to push his bangs off his forehead before remembering they were clipped and shoving his hands in his pockets instead.

“You don’t like the idea. That’s fine, no problem, I totally get it, we’ve only been officially dating eight months, maybe that’s soon for this kind of talk.”

“This kind of talk as in a toothbrush and shampoo? That’s not soon, Rai, that’s normal,” Safu said. “Slow, even. Why don’t you have a toothbrush here?”

“Oh. I didn’t want to impose. But, yes, I thought it was about time too.”

“But that’s not what you’re asking. You ideally want to move in, like, completely. Every night of the week type thing, your main phone chargers are here and your clothes and this is where you eat your meals even when Shion isn’t here.”

Rai rubbed the back of his neck. The kettle was boiling, so Nezumi turned off the stove. He got a mug for Rai, choosing one that Shion usually used, and picked green tea for him, not bothering to ask even though Shion and Safu had a selection.

“Ideally, yes,” Rai finally said.

Nezumi knew why Safu was hesitant. Nezumi himself came here often, not just to help Safu move furniture, but to read, or study his scripts, or make lunch with Shion and Safu, or watch movies, or anything, really, that Shion and Nezumi used to do in Nezumi’s apartment, but they did it here now because Safu was here.

If Rai moved in, Nezumi would stop coming. They all knew this, except maybe Rai, who was most likely unaware of the frequency at which Nezumi was in this apartment. Unless Rai was fully aware, and this was his own scheme—by moving in, he was preventing Nezumi from being around Shion for mundane activities, like when Nezumi sat on the couch and read while Shion folded his laundry, or when Nezumi cooked lunch while Shion and Safu practiced their research conference presentations with each other, or when Nezumi and Shion and Safu simply collected in the middle of Safu’s king bed and did absolutely nothing at all but laid there and talked about random things to the point where one of them would eventually ask, _Why did we all come in here again?_ and no one would have a good answer for that.

“I think you have to talk to Shion,” Safu finally said.

“I will, of course. But I wanted your permission first. It’s your apartment.”

“Right. Well, I’ll support Shion’s decision.”

Nezumi poured the boiling water over the tea bag and took the mug to Rai.

“It’s green tea,” he said.

“Ah, thank you,” Rai said. He looked at Nezumi like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t, and Nezumi didn’t press him. He didn’t really care to talk to Rai.

“Have you asked him about maybe moving into your place?” Safu suggested.

“Oh, he wouldn’t be interested. He loves it here,” Rai said, then blew on the surface of his tea.

“Right. True, that’s true,” Safu mumbled, looking at Nezumi, who had nothing to add to this conversation, as it had very little to do with his opinion even though it was entirely about him, despite Rai possibly not having any clue about that.

“Well, look, I don’t want to impose on the furniture moving, so I’ll head out. Thanks for the tea,” Rai said, glancing at Nezumi again.

Nezumi did not point out that Rai did not drink any of the tea. It was too hot to drink, and it was a relief he wasn’t sticking around to wait for it to cool.

“When will you talk to Shion?” Safu asked.

“This weekend probably. He’s coming with me to my hometown to meet my parents, and then we’re staying the weekend at a hot spring. It’ll give us time to discuss things.”

“Oh, right, he’s excited for that,” Safu said.

Rai smiled. “Good, I’m glad. He seemed hesitant about meeting my parents for so long.”

“He’s just nervous.”

“I don’t know why. They’ll love him. Anyway, thanks so much, Safu, I’m really excited to move in—I mean, if Shion agrees—but it’s great to have your blessing. And good to see you, Nezumi, it’s been a while.”

Nezumi nodded, and then Rai was off his stool, and Safu was leading him out of the apartment, hugging him at the door before closing it behind him.

“Well,” she said, standing by the front door once Rai was gone, “do you still think I planned all that?” 

“If you did, you really are a traitor, and I’m going to move all your furniture back to where it was.”

“I didn’t. God, this is going to be such an ordeal, Shion’s going to freak out,” Safu moaned, walking back to the kitchen.

“Does Rai know how often I’m here?” Nezumi asked.

“I don’t know how much Shion tells Rai about you. If Rai does know how often you’re here, then it’s actually a surprisingly conniving move of him to try to move in here. He’d be much more devious than I anticipated. It shouldn’t be surprising if he is though, since you’re Shion’s type.”

“Why am I getting insulted here? I’m the innocent party.”

Safu was looking in the freezer and pulled out a pint of ice cream, offering Nezumi another pint—Rocky Road. She got spoons for them, and they leaned against the counter to eat, Nezumi digging around the nuts and trying to get the chunks of chocolate from his pint.

“Shion didn’t mention to me that he was meeting Rai’s parents in their quaint little hot spring town,” Nezumi said around his spoon.

“Switch,” Safu said, so Nezumi switched with her. Her pint was cookies and cream. “You told him not to include you on all updates Rai, remember?”

Nezumi shrugged. “It’s a big deal, right? Meeting the parents?”

“Rai met Karan months ago. He’s been bugging Shion about meeting his parents for ages.”

“So it means something that Shion finally gave in.”

“And what would it mean?” Safu asked, her spoon halfway to her lips and her eyes on Nezumi.

Nezumi worked on excavating a large cookie chunk. “Things are going well between them. That’s good. I’m glad.”

“You look ecstatic.”

“You like him?” Nezumi asked.

“He’s wild about Shion.”

“But do you like him?”

“Switch.”

Nezumi held out his pint and took back the Rocky Road, but he didn’t pay attention to it, still watching Safu until she finally sighed.

“He’s an utterly normal guy. He’s always nice, polite, I think he’s still trying to get me on his good side. He’s still doing that thing around me that people do when they meet someone new, putting on an act, not really relaxing, being a little fake, not in a bad way, but just trying to get me to like him. I imagine he’s different when he’s alone with Shion. And if he moved in here, he’d probably lost the act around me. Living with a person forces them to lower their defenses around you, and you learn about who they really are.”

“You think Shion knows who he really is?”

“Probably, at least to the point that Shion sees him more than just some nice polite guy. They spend a lot of time together. Why? You don’t like him? Pretend he’s got nothing to do with Shion, he’s just a regular guy you happened to meet. What would be your impression?”

“I hate hypotheticals,” Nezumi said, turning to put his spoon in the sink.

“You meet him at a bar. He tries to pick you up. Is he annoying? Is he funny? Charming? Nice? Too nice? Boring? Intriguing?”

Nezumi held the Rocky Road out to Safu, but she shook her head, so he replaced the lid and went to the freezer.

“I’d fuck him,” Nezumi said, after he put back the Rocky Road and then the cookies and cream when Safu handed it to him.

“But would you chat with him beforehand?”

“I don’t chat with any of them beforehand.”

“Afterward then? Some pillow talk?”

“If they’ve done a good job, I pass out afterward.”

“And if they haven’t done a good job?” Safu asked, and Nezumi glanced at her.

“We’re still talking about Rai, right? Are you saying he wouldn’t do a good job?”

Safu licked her spoon and said nothing.

“Come on,” Nezumi said. “I know you’d have pried Shion for details. Even if he won’t spill, you live here, you’d hear the guy, Shion’s loud when he’s having a good time.”

“You’re louder,” Safu said, pointing with her spoon.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“What would Shion think about you asking me for the details on his sex life? Don’t you feel a little pathetic?”

“I just moved your furniture for no reason at all but that a hippie magazine brainwashed you,” Nezumi reminded.

“It was a scientific journal,” Safu said, smiling and putting her spoon back to her lips.

“Fine, I don’t care,” Nezumi said shortly, turning away from the spread of her grin and leaving the kitchen.

He returned to Safu’s bedroom, grabbed his phone from her desk, and left again, passing Safu in the kitchen. “I’m heading out,” he told her.

“Thanks for your help.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey.”

Nezumi turned at the front door, his hand on the doorknob. Safu was standing beside the kitchen counter now, holding Rai’s mug of tea.

“Are you really mad at me because I won’t share with you Shion’s sex comparison chart between you and Rai?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a chart,” Nezumi said.

“A comparative bar graph would be the best format. You could be red bars, and Rai would be yellow. Categories rated on a scale of one to ten could include seduction, kissing prowess, oral, responsiveness to cues, sheer animal magnetism, ability to last, creativity, vocal enthusiasm, and overall satisfaction. Hypothetically, of course, but I forgot, you hate hypotheticals.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes, and Safu laughed.

“There’s no comparative bar graph, Nezumi.”

“That was a lot of categories to come up with off the top of your head.”

“I’m good at improvising. Oh, that’s another good category, I’ll tell him to add it.”

“Hypothetically,” Nezumi reminded.

Safu lifted Rai’s mug to her lips and sipped it, not quick enough to hide her smile.

Nezumi knew Safu wouldn’t reveal if she was kidding or not. She was hard to read, just like Rai, but Nezumi trusted Safu, and he couldn’t say the same for Rai.

“Tell him to add ‘least likely to need Viagra in twenty years’ as a category,” Nezumi said, opening the front door.

Safu laughed, lowering the mug. “Okay, I will. See you, Nezumi.”

Nezumi left the apartment and walked down the hall, looking up as he always did at the chandelier when he passed under it. He wondered now if this would be one of the last times he’d be walking under this chandelier, one of the last times he’d been leaving Safu and Shion’s apartment, one of the last times it was just Safu and Shion’s apartment and not someone else’s too.

*

As Safu and Rai had predicted, Shion’s next birthday came faster than Nezumi had expected. Nezumi got the alert of his birthday party as a text from an unknown number that quickly made itself known.

Nezumi was at the bakery, and Shion was there, and so was Safu. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Karan had assigned them to invent a new cookie. The winning cookie would be added to the menu and named after the winning baker.

“No one in their right mind would eat a cookie named Nezumi,” Nezumi said, this fact occurring to him as he measured brown sugar.

“Yours can be called Eve,” Safu said. She was covered in flour and was the clear loser of the challenge despite the fact that they were all in the beginning stages. Nezumi had already watched her add three tablespoons of salt to her batter for some bizarre reason.

“If Shion wins, it’s nepotism. He should be disqualified,” Nezumi said.

“Shut up, you know you’re going to win anyway,” Shion said back, frowning into his mixing bowl.

“Your phone’s lighting up,” Safu said, pointing to Nezumi’s back pocket. “I can see it through the fabric of your jeans.” 

“You’re trying to distract me from my cookie making. That’s sabotage,” Nezumi said, but he slipped his hand in his pocket anyway and saw a number he didn’t have programmed into his phone had sent him a text. Nezumi glanced at Safu to make sure she wasn’t adding anything into his mixing bowl, then opened it.

_Nezumi, it’s Rai. I took your number from Shion’s phone. As you know, Shion’s twenty-sixth birthday is next weekend, and I wanted to invite you to Shion’s surprise birthday party that I’m throwing. Maybe Safu has already told you? It’ll be at his and Safu’s apartment, Friday at nine o’clock. I know you have a production, but it’d mean a lot to me if you were able to come afterwards. Shion won’t have a good time unless you’re there. Let me know._

“Who is it?” Shion asked.

Nezumi glanced at him. “My manager.”

Shion frowned. “You’ve never looked at a text from your manager like that.”

“Are you studying my text-reading expressions now? And how did I supposedly look at it?”

“With a look of great severity,” Safu said, tossing a handful of walnuts she hadn’t even chopped into her batter with flourish.

“Where do you come up with this shit?” Nezumi asked, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He picked up his bowl and took it with him to the sink so no one would add anything to it while he washed his hands.

“You were almost glaring. A pre-glare look,” Shion said.

“Stop examining my face, it’s creepy,” Nezumi replied, returning to the counter with his bowl once his hands were washed.

The kitchen door swung open, and Karan stood in the doorway. “Hey, guys, how’s it going in here?”

“Shion should be disqualified for nepotism,” Nezumi told her.

“I’ll consider it. In the meantime, can I borrow one of you? The register got jammed like it does, and I can’t fix it even though I did that slapping thing you showed me last week.”

“I’ll help,” Shion said, then looked at Safu and Nezumi. “I’ll know if one of you sabotages my cookies while I’m gone.”

“Will you?” Safu asked.

“He won’t,” Nezumi said.

Shion narrowed his eyes at both of them as he walked around the counter. When he was gone with Karan, Safu turned on Nezumi.

“That was from Rai, wasn’t it? About the surprise party?”

“And why didn’t you tell me?” Nezumi asked.

“I told him not to invite you.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s an idiot,” Safu said, shaking her head and shaking cinnamon into her bowl. “You know you can’t come.”

“What’s going on with the moving situation? It’s been four months since Rai asked you for permission,” Nezumi said, deciding not to address Safu’s un-invite.

“Don’t change the subject. And I thought you didn’t keep track of time.”

“Is he moving in?”

“Shion told him he wouldn’t live with anyone until they dated for a year,” Safu said.

“They started dating right after Shion turned twenty-five,” Nezumi reminded.

“I know.”

“Is he moving in right after Shion’s birthday?”

“All I know is that Shion told him about his year rule when Rai asked four months ago, and that Rai agreed. I don’t have any updates as of then. Now promise you won’t come to Shion’s birthday. Wasn’t there enough drama at Rai’s birthday? Shion will do another thing with Karan, he always does, just be at that, make him a cake like you always do, let Rai’s thing be Rai’s thing.”

“How is it Rai’s thing if it’s at your apartment?” Nezumi countered.

Safu vigorously shook nutmeg into her mixing bowl. Nezumi had completely forgotten about his cookies.

“He’s doing all the planning, he invited all of Shion’s professor friends, he arranged catering and got streamers and decorations and a cake and whatever. He’s going to decorate the place on Friday while I distract Shion outside the apartment, and then I’ll bring him when Rai texts me that he’s ready.”

“It’s still your apartment.”

“Soon to be Rai’s,” Safu countered.

“So he is moving in?”

“Nezumi,” Safu groaned. “Just tell me you won’t come. You said yourself it’s better if you avoid Rai’s birthdays in the future. Remember saying that? I remember you saying that.”

“This is Shion’s birthday. Rai even said Shion won’t be happy unless I’m there. Want to see the text?”

“You’re being a child.”

“I’ll show you the text,” Nezumi said.

“He’s being polite so that when Shion asks why you’re not there, Rai can do the same thing, he can show Shion that he texted you and was the good boyfriend and genuinely asked you to be there, but we all know it’s a terrible idea.”

“I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t care anymore. I see Shion as a friend and only that. Totally platonic. I don’t even search exclusively for albinos when I watch porn anymore,” Nezumi said, smiling at her.

Safu just looked at him flatly, and then the kitchen door opened and Shion walked back in.

“Did you guys put salt in my cookies?” he asked.

“You’re supposed to put salt in cookies. It enhances the sweetness,” Safu said.

“Yeah, a pinch. I already put in my pinch.”

“But more salt means more enhanced sweetness,” Safu argued, looking back and forth from Shion to Nezumi.

“What?” Shion asked after a moment, leaning forward, and Nezumi started laughing.

“Oh no,” Safu said quietly, looking into her bowl.

“Safu. You’re an actual genius. You can’t really have thought that,” Shion insisted.

“I thought—I thought—Baking flusters me!” Safu stammered.

“So it’s just you and me then,” Shion said, looking at Nezumi.

“I thought you said we all knew I would win,” Nezumi said back.

“I changed my mind. I’m going for the nepotism win. I just have to make it convincing,” Shion replied, grinning his stupid grin, the one he’d had as a child, the one Nezumi knew better than anyone—better than Rai, certainly.

Nezumi knew it was a bad idea to go to Shion’s birthday party. But he had to be able to deal with Rai at some point. He could be mature. He could be supportive.

“Great. Just you and me then,” he told Shion, who cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders and tilted his head to both sides like he was trying to crack his neck too until he stopped abruptly, wincing, and rubbed the side of his neck, the complete idiot.

The idiot Nezumi was in love with. But he could get over him. He had no other choice.

*


	20. Chapter 20

It was almost midnight on Friday night when Nezumi slipped into Safu and Shion’s apartment building behind an actual resident who had a key card. Since Nezumi had given back his own key card after breaking up with Shion, he usually texted Safu or Shion to buzz him in, but he had ten texts on his phone from Safu telling him he better not show up, and he figured Shion wouldn’t be checking his phone, since it was his party and all.

When Nezumi got off the elevator on Safu and Shion’s floor, he could hear music streaming down the hall and assumed this was from the party. He wondered what the neighbors thought until he got in front of the apartment door and saw a note taped onto the door.

It was in handwriting that wasn’t Shion or Safu’s. It was neat and tidy, and Nezumi assumed it was Rai’s.

_Sorry about the noise, we’re celebrating a birthday! All residents on this floor should have received emails about the party ahead of time, but if you didn’t, as a thank you for putting up with our late night noise, we want to treat everyone on the floor to a gift card worth one large drink at the coffee shop across the street—in case we keep you up tonight, hopefully a free coffee in the morning will make up for it! If you didn’t receive your gift card, write your email below, and you will get it tomorrow as a thank you for not complaining to apartment management._

“What kind of lunatic,” Nezumi muttered, trying the door after he read the note and finding it unlocked.

At first, he thought he’d stepped into the wrong apartment. He’d stepped into what seemed more like a club, with dimmed lights and an actual disco ball hanging from the ceiling and, somehow, strobe lights. The stacks of books had been pushed against the walls, as had the furniture of the living room, and people were dancing in the space that used to have the couches and coffee table and teetering book stacks.

Nezumi closed the door behind him and looked around, finding the source of the strobe lights—a spinning light projector sitting on top of one of the bookshelves—before finding Shion, who was among the dancing bodies in the living room. Rai was spinning him by the hand, and then Shion was falling into Rai’s chest, laughing and winding his arms around Rai’s neck.

Nezumi considered walking back out, but then he spotted Safu in the kitchen and headed to her instead.

“You asshole, why did you come?” she said when he was close enough to hear her, slapping him on the chest.

“He moved the books,” Nezumi told her.

“I noticed,” she said, lifting a plastic cup to her lips. “It’s impressive though, you have to admit.”

“Shion doesn’t like stuff like this.”

“Yes, he does seem to be having an awful time,” Safu said, raising her eyebrows, and Nezumi looked away from her. He couldn’t see Shion until another group of dancing people moved to the side, and then he had a clear view again of Shion and Rai, this time without their arms around each other, but still dancing together, doing the same stupid shoulder shaking move, the song having changed to something faster.

“Why aren’t you out there?”

“I was. I’m catching my breath now,” Safu said, and another look at her did show that her skin was flushed, her hairline wet. “You could dance with me.”

“Maybe a drink first,” Nezumi suggested.

“Don’t get drunk.”

“One drink won’t get me drunk,” Nezumi said, sliding around Safu to grab a plastic cup from the stacks on the counter. There were several bottles—wine, beer, sake, gin, vodka. Nezumi chose the vodka, filled his cup to the top, and chugged it.

“Nezumi!” Safu said, hitting his arm.

“Stop hitting me,” Nezumi gasped, then pressed his palm to his lips to stop his gag reflex. He filled his cup at the sink with water when it was empty, then downed that and set his cup down. Already, he felt tipsy and warm and off balance.

“You complete idiot!” Safu snapped.

Nezumi held his hand out to her. The song had changed again, something even faster. “Does that mean you won’t dance with me?”

Safu shook her head, but she put down her own cup and took his hand, and Nezumi pulled her around the counter, through the bodies—who all these people were, Nezumi had no idea—and into what used to be a living room.

Nezumi couldn’t help but remember when he, Shion, and Safu had gone to an actual club on Halloween. He had to give Rai credit—this was a good recreation, including the sweaty bodies moving in a mass. Nezumi felt plastered the second he’d pulled Safu in the center of everyone, and then Safu’s hands were on his arms.

“Hey, are you going to pass out?”

“I’m good,” Nezumi said. He put his hands on her waist because he was supposed to be dancing with her, but also because he had to steady himself.

“I got you,” Safu said, her lips right at his ear, as she’d stepped closer to him, which was good as he’d just stumbled forward—maybe she knew that, she probably knew that, she was a genius that knew everything, and that was why she’d told him not to come, that was why she’d told Rai not to invite him.

Nezumi should have listened to her. Just one look at Shion and Rai and he was wasted, and it was pathetic, and he knew that, he hardly believed himself but here he was, undeniably plastered, undeniably jealous.

He dipped his head, let his forehead rest against the warm skin of Safu’s neck. “Where’s Shion?”

“Nezumi, pull yourself together, you can do it. You have a high tolerance, remember?” Safu said, her hand sliding along his jaw. She pulled his head up, which was surprising, as Nezumi’s head felt incredibly heavy. He had no idea how she was holding it up.

She held his face in front of hers. Nezumi blinked at her. Even his eyelids were heavy.

“Shit,” she said.

“That was too much vodka.”

“Of course it was! Who drinks a whole fucking cup straight?” Safu snapped.

Nezumi looked at her, the strobe lights streaking across her exasperated expression. She was close enough to kiss, and Nezumi thought about the first time he’d danced with Shion at some bar that wasn’t even a club, where no one else was dancing, and Shion had gotten himself wasted trying to keep up with Nezumi, and he’d made Nezumi dance with him.

Nezumi had never kissed him yet. He remembered the way Shion had looked at him. A wordless request for a kiss, and Nezumi had wanted it too, but he’d controlled himself, he’d known better.

Nezumi should have known better now, too. He knew better than to be jealous. He knew better than to drink a large plastic cup of vodka at once. He knew better than to ruin Shion’s birthday, especially since Shion had looked so happy when Nezumi walked in and saw him, dancing with that Rai of his, that boyfriend of his, that new love of his, that normal guy of his.

“Fuck,” Nezumi whispered.

Safu still had her hand along his jaw. Her thumb swiped across his cheek. “Come to my room, I’ll put you to bed. It’s okay,” she said quietly.

“He’ll see me,” Nezumi said. He couldn’t believe himself.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t, come on, we can make it,” Safu insisted, her arm around his waist tightening.

“He’ll know.”

“Shh, come on, you have to walk, you’re heavy, I can’t drag you, and we’ve got to weave around these people.”

“He’ll know I can’t deal with—with—”

“Nezumi, focus, we’ve got to get through a mass of people. Who knew professors could get so drunk? They were never this fun when I was in school,” Safu was saying.

Nezumi felt drunker by the second. It didn’t help that he’d taken three shots, courtesy of a castmate, in his dressing room before heading over after his show. He’d forgotten about those shots. He’d taken them and made a deal with himself—he’d take three shots at the theater and not drink anything at Shion’s party. He wouldn’t be messy. He wouldn’t let Shion know he still gave a shit that Shion had moved on so easily, so quickly—wasn’t it supposed to be hard? Hadn’t he said it would be impossible? Had he said that? Nezumi couldn’t remember.

“Nezumi?”

It was Shion’s voice. Nezumi would know it drunk or sober.

“Shit,” Safu hissed.

Nezumi tried to stand up on his own but was not successful in this, and he was glad Safu didn’t let go of him when he let go of her.

He leaned hard against her side and blinked at Shion and tried to make himself look sober. He was an actor, a good one, a famous one. He could pretend to be just tipsy, at most. Appropriately buzzed. A good, safe, nothing-to-be-concerned-about drunk. A not-pathetically-drunk drunk.

“Your Majesty,” he said, smiling at Shion, who was staring at him, then at Safu.

“When did he get here?”

“Um,” Safu said, stumbling, so Nezumi stumbled too. “Shit, he’s heavy. Sorry, Nezumi, just—Don’t put all your weight on me, I can’t hold you.”

“Sorry,” Nezumi murmured. He focused on keeping his eyes open because he thought he kept closing them, which probably wasn’t helping his sober act.

“Is he on drugs?” Shion asked, almost shouting.

“No, he’s not, he’s just drunk. I mean, I don’t think he is. Are you?” Safu asked.

“Mm?” Nezumi asked.

“I really don’t think he is. He drank a lot at once, that’s all. I think he should just lie down, sleep it off. He drinks a lot, you know that, he’s fine,” Safu said.

“I’ve seen him drunk before, and I’ve never seen him like this! How could you let him get this bad?”

“Shion, calm down, this isn’t Safu’s fault.”

Nezumi made himself open his eyes, which had closed again. Rai was beside Shion. Of course he was.

“He’s an alcoholic, Safu!” Shion shouted.

“What are you talking about? He’s not an alcoholic,” Safu said back.

“That’s what your mom said before, at dinner,” Rai said slowly.

“He used to be, a long time ago,” Safu was saying. “We’ve never seen him like that, it was before we knew him, before Shion and Karan knew him.”

“He’s clearly a fucking alcoholic right now, look at him. And it’s because of me,” Shion said.

Nezumi felt himself sliding down Safu’s side and really was unable to do much about it, but then someone else was pulling him up.

“Sorry, Nezumi, I couldn’t hold you up,” Safu said.

“’S okay,” Nezumi murmured, hoping it was in the direction of Safu.

“Take him to my room,” Safu was saying.

Nezumi made himself open his eyes again, and of course it was Rai whose arms were around his waist. Rai was strong, much stronger than Safu. His grip was steady, his side solid when Nezumi leaned against it.

“Put your arm around my neck,” Rai said, so Nezumi did that.

“I can’t believe this,” Shion was saying from somewhere. There were a lot of voices, but Nezumi could pick Shion’s out of any number of voices. He’d always find Shion.

“Shion, wait here, you’re pissed, and you’ll say things you regret. Let me put him down in Safu’s room, and I’ll come back.”

“And I don’t have a right to be pissed? He says he’s fine, he says he’s happy for me, he says he wants me to be happy, and he goes and does this shit?” Shion snapped. “How am I supposed to be happy when I’m fucking him up?”

“Shion, stop,” Safu said, and Nezumi felt her hand on his arm. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Nezumi whispered.

“Rai’s taking you to my room.”

“I know.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Just stay here, I’ll be right back,” Rai said, and Nezumi tightened his arms around Rai’s neck when Rai started walking. Slowly, the music grew dimmer, and it was less hot, and then it was quiet and there weren’t strobe lights against his eyelids.

“Put him on his side,” Safu said.

“Nezumi, hey, I’m setting you down now, you’re on Safu’s bed.”

Nezumi didn’t protest, felt as Rai let him go, and then there was a bed under him, and he collapsed onto it, feeling heavy and weightless at once.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, when someone moved his legs.

“I’m just taking off your boots,” Safu said. “Can you give him a pillow?”

Nezumi’s head was lifted, and he knew it was Rai, and then there was a pillow under his cheek. He kept his eyes closed. His hair was in his face, but then fingers were tucking it behind his ear—Safu, he guessed.

“I’ve been drunk before, I’m fine,” he said, cracking open his eyes.

“I’m going to get him a trash can. You put mine in the living room for the party, right?”

“It should be against one of the bookcases.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Safu said.

She was gone then, and Nezumi watched Rai crouch in front of the bed so that he was at eye level.

Nezumi blinked at him.

Rai ran his hand slowly through his hair. He looked tired. “You’re a real handful, Nezumi, you know that?”

Nezumi licked his lips. He wanted to vomit, but like hell he was doing that in front of Rai.

“Don’t you want Shion to be happy? I know you love him. It’s obvious every time you look at him. It’s all over your face, you don’t even try to hide it.”

Nezumi breathed through his mouth, and his breaths were shallow. He wanted Safu to come back. He wanted to close his eyes, but Rai was looking at him, and Nezumi didn’t want to be the first one to look away.

“You don’t try to hide your misery either. Look at you. You broke up with him. You can’t keep doing this to him. He blames himself.”

Strands of hair that Safu hadn’t tucked well enough behind his ear fell forward and over Nezumi’s eyes. He shifted, about to move them, but then Rai reached out, touched Nezumi’s forehead with his fingertip, tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ear like Nezumi was a child to him.

Nezumi moved away from his touch. His stomach rolled, and he ignored it. He pushed up from the bed until he was sitting, his palms flat against the mattress and his arms straight, holding him up.

“I can’t deal with this, Nezumi. I can’t deal with him talking about you all the time, worrying about you all the time. I don’t want to break up with him. I like him a lot. A crazy amount, honestly. I could see my whole life with him, and it’s the best version of my life I could ever imagine. But if my birthday and tonight are indications of the rest of our lives, if this is going to keep happening—you seeing him happy with me and having meltdowns, relapses, whatever this is, him blaming himself and being miserable because he’s making you miserable—I can’t do it,” Rai said. His voice was soft. Sad, even.

Nezumi didn’t understand him. He wanted Rai to be mean. He wanted Rai to yell at him. He wanted Rai to be an asshole so it wouldn’t matter if he left Shion, so Shion would be better off without him.

“He won’t live without you. That’s fine. I don’t need him to. But if you’re going to be in his life, you’re going to be in mine. I want to like you, I want to get along, I want to make this as easy as I can on you. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you, to live forever, to fall in love and know it’s pointless, temporary, fleeting compared to the rest of the time you have. I can’t imagine, Nezumi, I can’t. It must suck. I’d drink too. But you have to keep it together in front of him. You have to, or he’ll hate himself.”

Nezumi was focusing on breathing, on not vomiting, on not passing out, on appearing mildly composed. It took all of his concentration.

“Listen to me,” Rai said, leaning forward. “I can deal with him loving you. He can’t help it. That’s okay. He loves me too, and I understand that the fact that he’s able to do that after your history is huge. But I can’t deal with his loving you causing him nothing but misery. Half the time, I feel like I’m just trying to make the pain you cause him more bearable. That can’t be my job. That’s not what I want in a relationship. So you’ve got to stop causing him pain. For all our sakes, you know?”

“Can you shut the fuck up now?” Nezumi said, when he trusted himself to speak without vomiting all over Rai.

Rai just looked at him, and then Safu was back, stopping in the doorway.

“God, it took me forever to find this. What’s going on? What’s happening? Please don’t be fighting,” Safu said, coming to the bed and sitting on the edge of it in front of Nezumi’s knees.

“We’re not fighting. I’ve got nothing against Nezumi. I don’t want a fight,” Rai said, standing up. He kept looking at Nezumi, who kept looking back until Rai was the one to turn away first, but Nezumi felt no satisfaction.

Rai left the room, pulling the door behind him but leaving it open a crack. 

Safu looked at Nezumi, who slumped back down on the bed. “What was that?” 

“He lectured me,” Nezumi murmured, closing his eyes. “And he touched my hair.”

“Your hair?”

“Fucking condescending piece of shit,” Nezumi muttered. 

“He touched your hair?”

“Safu, please, can you let me pass out?”

Safu sighed. “Okay. I’m going to put this trashcan right beside the bed. Right there. This is my room, remember? So please, please, don’t vomit on my bed, I’m really asking you as a friend to do me that favor. Okay?”

Nezumi opened his eyes again. He looked at her, and she rubbed his arm up and down the way a mom might.

“Go to sleep. It’s okay,” she said.

“Why do you put up with me?” Nezumi asked her, his words slurred, and he fought to make them clearer. “I’m the piece of shit. Not Rai. Even I know that.” 

“You’re not, actually.”

Nezumi closed his eyes again. He felt Safu’s hand slide down his arm until her fingers were wrapping around his own.

She squeezed his hand. “I put up with you because you’re my family. And family puts up with each other. Or so I’ve been told. My whole family died when I was young too. I have to have a fake family too, just like you do. And you became mine, somehow, it just happened. There’s nothing to do about it now.”

Nezumi took a moment to absorb her words, and when he did, he squeezed Safu’s hand back.

After a moment, Safu slipped her hand free, and Nezumi felt the bed rise when she stood up, but a moment later, it was sinking again, and Nezumi felt Safu’s body curling into his back, her arm slipping around his waist. He knew he was drunk, and he knew that was the only reason the feel of her small frame against his back made him think of his little sister, when she used to curl against his back, when she used to press her forehead between Nezumi’s shoulder blades just like Safu did.

It probably was not a real memory. Nezumi doubted the mind was capable of remembering for so long, of holding onto anything for so long. After a hundred years, it couldn’t have stuck. He couldn’t hold her face in his head anymore. He had no idea what she looked like, his little sister. The face he saw was different every time he imagined her.

“Nezumi,” Safu whispered, and at first he thought it was his sister, but that wasn’t the name she called him, that wasn’t the name his parents had given him, that was the name he’d chosen after everyone was gone so he’d never have to hear his old name again.

“I’m awake,” Nezumi told her.

“If Shion dies before me, and if you’re too scared to do it yourself, I’ll kill you if you want me to.”

Nezumi opened his eyes. Stared at the wall in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he was awake. He thought he’d had a dream like this once, but he couldn’t remember.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” he said back.

“You don’t have to ask. I’m offering.”

“Okay,” Nezumi breathed.

Safu’s arm tightened around him. He closed his eyes and hoped he’d fall asleep first, so he wouldn’t have to feel her arm loosening again when she relaxed into unconsciousness.

*

When Nezumi woke the second time—he’d woken at some point in the middle of the night to vomit into the trashcan beside the bed—he was groggy, and for two seconds, he had no idea why he was in Safu’s bed with Safu sleeping beside him.

During these two seconds, he took note that they were clothed, which was some relief, and then the two seconds passed, and he remembered everything and was disappointed at his memory for keeping last night as a memory when, really, he’d have greatly preferred to have that wiped clean.

He groaned and rolled onto his stomach. His mouth tasted of vomit. He pressed his face into his pillow.

“Stop being so loud, I’m sleeping,” Safu murmured, kicking him.

“Sorry,” Nezumi said, freeing his face from the pillow to say it and looking at Safu, who slept on her stomach with her limbs splayed like starfish limbs.

He was still observing this bizarre position when Safu suddenly seemed to stiffen, and then she bolted up to her knees, and then she jumped backwards but was too close to the edge, so she fell off the bed.

“What the fuck?” Nezumi asked, pushing himself up by his arms and ignoring his headache as he crawled to Safu’s side to see Safu on the floor. She looked up at him and suddenly started laughing.

Nezumi wondered if she was a sleep walker and was possessed by some insane dream. She continued to laugh, then calmed herself down, then looked at him again and started laughing again.

“I’ve never had the urge to stab anyone with a wooden stake until now. You’re acting possessed,” Nezumi warned.

“Sorry, sorry,” Safu said, flapping her hands and clearly trying to calm herself down again. “I just freaked out when I realized it was you in my bed, but then I remembered why, and the fact that I thought we would ever—it was so funny—it’s so funny, sorry, sorry, I’m good, I’m composed, I’m good.”

“You literally leapt off the bed,” Nezumi said, while Safu wiped at her eyes.

“Oh, Shion would actually kill me, and in a brutal way too. It was a terrifying moment for me,” Safu said, pushing herself off the floor.

“Do you remember when we first met, it was your idea that we sleep together so Shion would get over me?” Nezumi asked, watching Safu stretch.

“That was a hypothetical.”

“You and your hypotheticals,” Nezumi said, lying back down.

“How do you feel?”

“Hungover.”

“It smells vaguely of vomit in here,” Safu said slowly.

Nezumi pointed without sitting up to his side of the bed, and Safu walked around her bed, presumably to make sure he hadn’t missed the trash, a theory that was confirmed in a few seconds.

“Oh, thank god. Okay, I’m going to go get rid of this, and I’ll do some reconnaissance, see if Shion’s in the apartment.”

“Where else would he be?” Nezumi muttered. “What time is it?”

“It’s eight fifteen. Early still, he might be asleep, I’m sure he went to bed late.”

“Why wouldn’t he be in his own apartment?” Nezumi asked again, but he received no reply. He opened his eyes and lifted his head from the bed to see that the bedroom was empty, the door open.

He groaned, contemplated going back to sleep, but he felt oddly wiry on top of his exhaustion. He hauled himself out of Safu’s bed and went to her bathroom, which, unlike Shion’s, was attached to her room.

He peed, then searched the drawers under her sink for a spare toothbrush. He found one, which wasn’t a surprise. She was probably one of those people who replaced her toothbrush every month or whatever the recommended timeline was.

Nezumi brushed his teeth, washed his face, blinked at himself in the mirror, then fixed his ponytail as he left the bathroom. He headed back through Safu’s room, noting his boots by the door of it, then headed to the kitchen, where Safu was lining the trashcan with a clean plastic bag from the spare grocery bags they kept under the sink.

“He’s not here,” Safu said, looking up at him.

“Where is he?”

“Probably Rai’s place.”

“Does he stay there often?”

“No, but I’m sure Rai insisted last night so he wouldn’t have to see you this morning.”

“So who wouldn’t have to see me this morning? Rai or Shion?” Nezumi asked, collapsing into one of the counter stools.

Safu had been filling a glass with water and slid it across the counter for Nezumi, who took it.

“Thanks.”

“Both of them, probably, but I meant Shion when I said it.”

Nezumi chugged his water as an excuse not to have to think of a reply to this. When he finished, Safu took his glass, refilled it, and placed it back in front of him, so Nezumi downed that too.

“Do you have work today?” he asked her.

“It’s Saturday.”

“Oh, fuck, I’ve got a show.”

“Are you going? If you do, I’ll come with. It’s at two, right? I haven’t seen this one. It’s the German one, right?”

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his forehead. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

“We can go to Karan’s until then,” Safu suggested.

“Are you trying to make sure I’m not here when Shion gets back?”

“I’m trying to make sure we’re both not here. He’s going to be pissed, and I don’t want to deal with it right now. Do you?”

Nezumi rested his arm over the counter and curled forward, laying his forehead on his forearm. He closed his eyes. “No,” he said.

“I’d tell you to cheer up and that it could be worse, but it probably couldn’t. You really were a mess last night.”

“Safu, shut up.”

“I know you’re an actor and all, but you should try to be less theatric about your heartbreak for your own sake. You’re killing the tough guy image you clearly put so much work into.”

Nezumi raised his head. “Are you having fun?”

“I’m giving you constructive criticism. Pull yourself together, that’s all I’m saying,” Safu said, filling her own glass of water. She drank it quickly, then set it in the sink and looked around. “Before we go to Karan’s, can you help me clean up? Rai said he’d put the living room back how it was—I told him I wanted each stack of books exactly in its old place, so we’ll see if that happens. But all these half-filled plastic cups everywhere are making it reek of alcohol.”

Nezumi pushed himself off the stool and took a better look at the damage. There were plastic cups everywhere, and the place was in general disarray. The living room was as it had been last night, with everything pushed to the walls. The disco ball still hung from the ceiling.

“Isn’t he an adult? Why’s he throwing a party like he’s in college?” Nezumi said, starting to gather cups.

“Aren’t you over a hundred years old? Why are you getting wasted like you’re in college?” Safu countered.

“Okay, I’ve had enough constructive criticism, you can stop with it now.”

“Right, sorry,” Safu replied, and Nezumi didn’t have to look at her to know she was grinning.

They cleared the apartment of cups and empty liquor and beer bottles, took the trash out, and Nezumi made them a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast while Safu showered. They ate, then headed to Karan’s. Mio was at the register, and they waved to her before going to the back, where Karan was cutting apples.

“Oh, hi, what a surprise!” she said, looking up at them and setting the apple wedge she’d been holding on the counter. She hugged Safu, then stood in front of Nezumi, her hands on his upper arms. “You look hungover.”

“Thank you, Karan, you look wonderful too.”

“Did you have a good night?”

“It was fantastic,” Nezumi said, letting Karan look at him a moment longer before he slipped out of her grip and went to the sink.

“Have you talked to Shion?” Safu asked.

“Not since yesterday morning. Why? How was the surprise party?”

Safu glanced at Nezumi, who focused on washing the suds off his fingers.

“He had fun,” Nezumi said.

“Good. Rai texted me some pictures last night, it looked fun. Why didn’t Shion come here with you two?”

“He’s sleeping in, he had a late night.”

“Let me see the pictures!” Safu said, so Karan took out her phone and gave it to Safu, who showed the screen to Nezumi even though Nezumi had no interest.

Despite his lack of interest, he found himself pausing in tying the strings of his apron to peer over Safu’s shoulder and watch as she scrolled through Karan’s text conversation with Rai.

“You guys text?” Nezumi asked.

“Sometimes,” Karan said.

Safu scrolled up through photographs of Shion’s grin caught in the flash of the camera, his face pressed against Rai’s, then Safu’s, then both of them, then some other people Nezumi vaguely recognized.

“Other professors,” Safu said. “You probably met them when you went to his gala a few years ago. These are all from before you came.”

“I figured,” Nezumi said, as Shion looked blissfully happy in all of them, and Nezumi imagined that was not the case after his own arrival and performance.

At the top was not a photograph, but a video. Safu played it, and at first the screen was just dark.

“What’s this video?” Safu asked, glancing at Karan.

Karan was suddenly beside them, reaching for her phone. “Oh, there’s no need to watch that,” she said. She glanced at Nezumi quickly, but not quick enough that he didn’t notice.

Karan had taken the phone from Safu, but Nezumi grabbed it easily from Karan and held a hand out to her when she protested.

“Are you really going to fight me for it?” he asked her, and she sighed and shook her head.

Nezumi pressed play again, as Karan had paused it, and Safu leaned against him to watch too.

The front door opened in the video, letting in a sliver of light that became wider and revealed Shion, then Safu behind him. Safu flicked on the lights, and then many voices yelled, “Surprise!” and there was somehow confetti shooting at Shion and streamers being thrown, and Shion stared at it all in disbelief for a moment, then covered his face with his hands.

“Hold this.” It was Rai who said this, and then the camera was shaking, and Nezumi figured Rai gave his phone to someone else to hold and keep filming, because then Rai was in the video himself, walking to Shion and standing in front of him, pulling Shion’s hands from his face by his wrists to uncover Shion’s disbelieving expression, his mouth open and his eyes wide on Rai.

“Happy birthday, professor. You deserve the world, but I couldn’t figure out how to give you that, so I went with a party instead. Is that okay?” Rai asked, and then Shion’s hands were on Rai’s cheeks.

“I fucking love you, professor,” Shion said, and then he pulled Rai’s face forward and kissed him, and they were kissing, and Rai’s arms were winding around Shion’s waist, and he even lifted Shion off the floor, and there was more cheering and streamer throwing, and then the video cut off.

The quiet of the bakery kitchen seemed oddly loud after the abrupt end of the video’s cheering.

“Well,” Nezumi said, to break this quiet. “Isn’t that cute. Something to show the grandkids, but you’ll have to bleep out Shion’s profanity.” He offered the phone back to Karan, who took it and slipped it into the pocket of her apron.

There was more quiet, which Nezumi hated, so he went to the counter and picked up Karan’s abandoned half apple.

“Want me to finish these?” he asked, picking up the knife without waiting for a reply. “All of them in chunks like those you’ve done already, or do you want some slices to lay over the pie crust?”

“It’s for tarts,” Karan finally said.

“Just chunks then.”

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi cut the half apple quickly, was already picking up another, splitting it in half, then quarters, then gouging the core from each part. Karan had taught him the best way to cut apples years ago. He could do it without thinking, but he chose to think, to concentrate, making a game with himself to get every chunk the same size even though that didn’t matter at all.

“Yeah, Karan,” he said.

“Nothing,” she said. “Safu, want to get the dough started? I’ll go and check with Mio up front.”

“Okay,” Safu said.

Karan left, her hand pausing on Nezumi’s back for a moment on her way out. When she was gone from the kitchen, Nezumi pointed his knife at Safu before she could speak.

Her lips were open, and he knew she was going to say something.

“I really don’t care, and all this concern is irritating.”

“You don’t care,” Safu repeated.

“Should I? I know they’re in love, a happy couple, they call each other professor, even though technically Rai is not a professor, but still, it’s cute. You guys acting like I’m some wounded puppy is what’s going to piss me off.”

“Right. And because you don’t care, you drank eight ounces of vodka like it was water after seeing them dancing. But cute nicknames and professions of love are harmless. It’s really just dancing that gets you.”

“You’re being fucking annoying today, you know that? Don’t get me wrong, usually I’m all for your refreshing candor, but it’s not that charming today, so maybe quit it for two seconds,” Nezumi said roughly.

“Don’t make me the villain,” Safu said back. “I’ve had your back this whole time.”

“Yeah? Since the first time we met, you told me I was the worst thing for him.”

“Aren’t you?” Safu demanded.

“I’m sick of talking about him, I’m not doing this with you, shut up or change the topic.”

“You shut up!” Safu snapped.

Nezumi just shook his head and went back to his apples. He’d gotten through three more when Safu spoke again, her voice soft this time.

“New topic suggestion—can you show me how on earth you’re cutting those so fast? It’s been five minutes, and you’ve done nearly all of them.”

Nezumi glanced at her. She gave him a small smile, and he figured he wasn’t getting anything out of being pissed at her anyway.

“I’ll show you, get another knife,” he told her, and she smiled wider and went to get another knife.

He taught her the way Karan had taught him, and by the time they’d cut all the apples in the kitchen, she was, if not fast, then at least less slow.

“It took me a while to get the hang of it,” Nezumi told her.

“Practice makes perfect, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,” Safu said, sighing and taking an apple chunk from the bowl. She popped it in her mouth and offered the bowl to Nezumi, who took one as well.

The sound of their chewing filled the quiet of the bakery.

*

Nezumi hadn’t decided if he was going to try to avoid Shion or just confront him to get the lecturing over with as soon as possible, but he wasn’t given the chance to decide. He’d just finished his night show and was taking his make-up off in his dressing room when there was a knock on the door, and before Nezumi could reply, it was opening.

Nezumi thought it might have been Safu, though she’d gone home after watching his afternoon show, so that wouldn’t have made sense. But it would have made more sense than Rai walking into Nezumi’s dressing room.

“Are you lost?” Nezumi asked, after absorbing the fact that Rai was standing in the doorway of his dressing room.

“No, I’m warning you. Shion’s here.”

“With a gun?”

“What? No,” Rai said, seeming alarmed at the idea.

“You said you were warning me. I’m assuming that means there’s some sort of threat involved,” Nezumi explained, glancing at himself in the mirror before pivoting in his chair.

He’d only taken off the make-up from half his face before the entry of his unexpected visitor, so his left eye still had eyeliner, a garish wing-tip affair. He’d been cast as a German prostitute. He’d died by strangulation, and the make-up was still on his neck too—blush used to create a red handprint, eyeshadow shades for bruising. His lips were a deep red, almost burgundy.

“Oh,” Rai was saying, glancing behind his shoulder before looking back at Nezumi. “No. He’s just unhappy. I thought you could use a warning.”

“And what am I supposed to do with this warning? Escape out the back?”

Rai just looked at him. Nezumi sighed.

“Thank you for the warning,” he said, waving his hand. “You can leave now. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with—”

“What are you doing here? You said you were in the bathroom.”

“I was telling Nezumi how much we loved his play,” Rai said, to Shion, who had appeared in the doorway beside him.

“I need to talk to you,” Shion said, presumably to Nezumi, who’d turned away from the doorway to drag a make-up wipe over his lips.

The smear of lipstick across the wipe looked like blood. There were still traces of it over his lips, and he shifted the wipe in his fingers to expose a clean part before dragging it over his lips again.

“Are you ignoring me? Seriously?” 

“I’m not ignoring you. I’m waiting for you to talk. Though I can save you the trouble.” Nezumi turned from the mirror again. Shion had shoved past Rai and stood in the dressing room between Rai and Nezumi. “I’m sorry I got irresponsibly drunk at your party and made you worry. That was not my intention. You are not in any way responsible for what I drink and when I drink and how much I drink.”

“Irresponsibly drunk. That’s how you want to put it?”

“How would you put it?” Nezumi asked. “Oh, and happy birthday. I didn’t get to say that last night.”

Shion had his hands on his hips. “You didn’t get to say that last night because you were completely shitfaced.”

“I prefer irresponsibly drunk, if you don’t mind.”

“Stop it! This isn’t a joke to me! Is it a joke to you that the longer I’m in a healthy relationship, the more you self-destruct? Or are you going to deny that? That after all that bullshit you give me about wanting me to be happy, you won’t even let me. The happier I am, the more miserable you are, because you’re selfish, and you only want my happiness to be a product of your doing. Admit it!”

Nezumi blinked at him, then glanced at Rai, who hovered behind Shion’s shoulder, though he’d had the sense to step into the dressing room in order to close the door.

“I should have escaped while I had the chance,” Nezumi said.

Rai shook his head.

“Hey! Don’t look at Rai, look at me. I need you to understand something. I’m not mad at you for being reckless and putting your life in danger and drinking too much. Go ahead, be an alcoholic, I really don’t give a shit anymore, Nezumi.”

“It seems like you’re a little mad,” Nezumi offered.

“Oh, I’m mad, I’m mad that you have the audacity to feel some kind of ownership over me, that you clearly have a set of terms of what’s acceptable for my dating life, which is that I’m allowed to fuck around, just like you, I’m allowed to have casual sex and be miserable like you, but I can’t actually really move on. You tell me to, but you don’t mean it, you don’t want that, that’s not okay in your world, where everyone worships you and—”

“Shion, maybe that’s enough,” Rai said, placing his hand on Shion’s arm.

Shion jerked his arm free and didn’t look at Rai. “I’m so sick of my emotions being dependent on how you’re feeling, Nezumi, because you’re never happy, you aren’t. Even when you get what you want, which presumably was me, you still weren’t happy because all you could think about was how we’d die. What kind of messed up person are you?”

Nezumi examined the man in front of him. He was truly angry, and while Nezumi had expected some level of anger, it hadn’t been this much. Getting drunk at a birthday party didn’t warrant this much anger.

“Shion,” Rai said gently, his hand again on Shion’s arm, and again, Shion jerked away.

“And you! Don’t touch me when you’re planning on breaking up with me.”

“What?” Rai asked, holding up both hands.

“That’s right, I heard you. I saw Safu looking for her trashcan last night, so I knew you two were alone together, so I went to interfere because I knew Nezumi was going to say something stupid to you to try to break us up—”

“I didn’t say anything,” Nezumi cut in.

“No, you didn’t. By some miracle, you kept your opinions to yourself. But you’re still going to ruin everything anyway because I was right outside the room and I heard Rai say he’s going to break up with me if you keep parading your heartbreak around, as if I’m the one responsible for your heartbreak, as if you’re not the one who’s made your own misery.”

“You heard all that last night?” Rai asked, and Shion glanced at him.

“I did, I heard what you said to him, and you know what? It’s fair, it’s completely fair, I’m not mad at you, babe, I totally understand. Who would want to date someone who comes with baggage like this?” Shion demanded, pointing to Nezumi to indicate quite clearly that he was the baggage being referred to.

“Let’s not—Let’s just calm down,” Rai said, but Shion ignored him easily, had turned back to Nezumi and stepped closer to him, and Nezumi leaned back in his chair.

“I never thought I’d be happy with anyone else but you,” Shion said quietly. “I never thought it’d be possible. Remember when I started college? When I said couldn’t even see anyone but you? When I tried to date, and it didn’t work, I felt nothing for them, for anyone, because for so long, you had defined my capacity and controlled my ability to feel, remember?”

Nezumi didn’t think Shion would want a response, but Shion was clearly waiting, so Nezumi nodded once.

“That didn’t change for a long time,” Shion said. “I still thought those things after we finally got together and after you broke up with me as you’d been secretly planning the whole time we were together. I still thought that was it for me, I thought that year with you would be the best year of my life, and now I’d have to settle for something less than happiness, something less than love, something less than you. But I was wrong. I found someone else. And I’m really fucking happy, and I’m not saying that to hurt you, I’m not, I’m saying that so you understand you’re going to fuck this up for me, and I’m never going to forgive you for that. I can forgive you for fucking up our relationship and my happiness when it depended on you. But I can’t forgive you for fucking up this new life I’ve made for myself where I don’t have to depend on you to feel passion and love and whole and alive. So pull yourself together, Nezumi. I’m serious. If you’re going to become an alcoholic now, don’t do it around me. I’m done feeling sympathy for you. This is your mess, you made it. If you’re going to lie in it, don’t expect me to clean you up.”

Shion left, then, without waiting for Nezumi’s response, but Nezumi didn’t mind.

He had no response. The only thought in his mind was how fucked he was, how far he’d fallen. He didn’t think he’d ever been more in love with the man than in this moment, receiving the heat of Shion’s anger, hearing it and taking it. He wanted it. He wanted more. It was true, it was right, all of it. He was amazed by it, by Shion’s ability to feel so much rage. The guy hadn’t even been alive for a hundred years, and still, he was capable of wrath like this.

Nezumi figured he must have taught that to Shion, with all the other things he’d taught him. How to be angry like a second skin. How to deal with that anger by giving it to someone else—though in Shion’s case, he was putting it on someone who deserved it.

“I should follow him,” Rai said because he still stood in the dressing room, looking at the space where Shion had stood.

“You should,” Nezumi offered. He didn’t feel numb or upset. He didn’t feel heartbroken or miserable. He just felt in love. How stupid of him. He almost wanted to laugh at himself, but Rai would probably think he’d gone nuts and have him committed to a ward, so he restrained himself.

Rai rubbed the back of his neck and did not follow Shion. “Look. If you’re an alcoholic, or borderline, or recovering, or whatever, I don’t feel right leaving you alone right now.”

Rai, the good guy. Nezumi would have been annoyed if he had any space in him for annoyance. “Karan lives across the hall from me. You can text her to check up on me,” he said.

“Right. I’ll do that,” Rai said.

“Good. You should follow your boyfriend, he’s run off and might throw a chair at someone or punch a hole in the set in the heat of his passion.”

“I doubt he’d do any of that.”

Nezumi shrugged. “I was trying to be nice rather than just tell you to get out, but I can do that too if you can’t take a hint.”

Rai smiled wanly. “Sure. Bye, then.”

Rai left, and Nezumi looked back in the mirror and was startled by his own eye, the black around it. For a moment, he thought he’d gotten a black eye, wondered if Shion had punched him without him even noticing, his words more effective than anything a punch could inflict, but then Nezumi remembered he hadn’t finished taking off his make-up.

Half of him was still a dead German prostitute. So just half of him was stupidly in love. At least that was some consolation.

*

The next day was Sunday, and Nezumi spent the morning in the bakery. He asked Karan if she’d be able to prep on her own, and when she said, _Hon, what do you think I do every morning you sleep in with one of your infamous hangovers?_ Nezumi spent the morning baking a single cupcake.

Karan didn’t ask about it, but when Nezumi finished icing it, she was standing beside him, her palm open, a single candle on it.

Nezumi took it, kissed her cheek, put his cupcake in a box, and left the bakery. He took the train, glad it was early Sunday morning still, which meant the carriage was mostly empty, and he got a seat beside no one who could jostle his cupcake box.

The ride felt long, but when he got to Shion’s stop, it felt abrupt and sudden. Nezumi left the train, made the familiar walk to Safu and Shion’s apartment building. He pulled out his phone to text Safu, but someone was coming into the building behind him, so Nezumi stepped aside and said he’d lost his key card in the train, and the man happily let Nezumi in.

Soon, Nezumi stood outside Safu and Shion’s apartment door. He tried the handle, but of course it was locked, so he called Safu, who picked up on the second ring.

“I’m sleeping.”

“Unlock your front door, and I’ll get you the number of the new guy on stage crew you asked about yesterday at the theater.”

Safu hung up.

Nezumi waited half a minute, and then the door swung open.

“Why are you here?”

“I missed your happy morning demeanor,” Nezumi replied. “Is he up?”

“Rai’s in there.”

Nezumi stopped on his way to Shion’s room. “Shit.”

“What’s in the box?”

“A cupcake. Fuck. Okay, I’ll leave a note. Have you got paper?”

Safu headed to the kitchen, so Nezumi followed and stood by the counter, watching as Safu retrieved a small spiral notebook and a pen. She placed them on the counter.

“Is this a grand romantic gesture?” 

“Why is that always your first thought?” Nezumi asked, clicking the pen.

“Because you’re a romantic, even though you don’t want anyone to know.”

“Go back to bed.”

Safu didn’t argue and left his side, but she turned just before leaving the kitchen. “You’ll get me that number?”

“I said I would.”

She was gone then. Nezumi contemplated the empty notebook paper. Then wrote.

*

_Your Majesty,_

_Am I still allowed to call you that? If not, tell me. I’ll stop if you want me to. I understand if it’s not appropriate._

_I came by to say happy birthday. I’ve never missed any of your birthdays since you turned seven. We’ve always spent them together. And even though I was here Friday night, we both know I wasn’t here in a way that was good enough to count._

_I also should say, while I’ve got you here, that I know Rai wants to move in here, and I know you’ve evaded answering by giving him some BS about not living with people you’ve dated less than a year? Well, it’s been a year, just about. Let him move in. You want him to, and he wants to. It’s only me who doesn’t want him to, but I’m not part of your relationship. We both need to remember that more. Or, I do, at least._

_Everything you said at the theater last night was true, as you know, because you know you’re a genius, I certainly don’t have to tell you that. I’m used to wallowing in my misery and having no one to call me out on it. You’re still new to me. I’m all you know because you’ve known me most of your life, so you’re an expert in dealing with me. But you’re not all I know. I lived most of my life without you. I’m still not good at dealing with you, or my feelings about you. I’m figuring it out still. I take a long time to figure out things because I’m used to having a lot of time. But you’re right, I’ve been wallowing for too long, so I’ll stop that now. And if you’ll allow it, I’d like for things to be good between us again._

_And I won’t let Rai break up with you because I’m too much baggage for him to handle. He wouldn’t break up with you anyway, no matter what he said. He’s not stupid like me, or pathologically obsessed with death._

_Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a heartfelt letter or anything, don’t be reading into things. It wasn’t even supposed to be a letter, but you’ve got company, so I’m not going to intrude just to say happy birthday. Cause that’s really all I came to say. So—happy birthday. You have birthdays all the time, which means it won’t be long until you’ve got another one, and I’ll do better then. Promise._

_Yours,_

_N_

_PS I baked an Eve cookie into the cupcake. You asked me when I won Karan’s cookie competition how I came up with that new recipe, remember? I was surprised then, as I am now, that you had to ask. I figured it was obvious that I just thought of your favorite things and mixed them together. I knew it’d have to turn into something good._

*

Nezumi was still on the train, maybe ten minutes from his apartment, when Shion texted—

_You can still call me Your Majesty._

A second text came in while he was rereading the first—

_And I knew how you came up with the Eve cookie recipe. I asked just to see if you’d admit it._

Nezumi rubbed his thumb over the words on his screen. He’d meant what he’d said—or written, he supposed. He’d stop wallowing. That didn’t mean he’d feel any differently. That didn’t mean he’d want Shion any less. It just meant he’d hide it better.

If Nezumi knew he could do anything, it was hide how he felt.

*


	21. Chapter 21

After Rai moved in with Safu and Shion, Nezumi stopped seeing Shion as often, or often at all. Nezumi suspected this was for two reasons. One, Nezumi stopped going to their apartment, so every time he saw Shion, there had to be a specific reason for it, like lunch or coffee, unless they happened to be in the bakery at the same time. Two, Rai now filled up the spaces of Shion’s life that weren’t school and work. Shion no longer saw Rai only on dates, but all the time. So every time Shion saw Nezumi, Rai would presumably know, as it would be time gouged out of normal life with Rai. Shion claimed Rai understood that Nezumi was a huge part of Shion’s life. Nezumi wasn’t sure if Shion was just dense, or if he knew fully well that Rai’s understanding was not an amicable one and simply chose not to address this tension.

Nezumi saw Safu about the same amount, despite the changes. She simply came to the bakery much more often.

Months passed like this, of seeing Shion less, but Nezumi was used to intermittent times of seeing less of Shion. Since Shion had gone to university years before, there’d been periods of time when Nezumi rarely saw him at all versus seeing him every day. He was used to the erratic pattern despite not liking it.

At some point during this period, Safu and Nezumi were baking sweet buns in the bakery when Safu said, “Rai wants to come to the bakery.”

“He hasn’t been to the bakery?” Nezumi asked, pausing in kneading the dough.

“Of course he has. To bake, I mean. Like back here, the kitchens. He knows we all do it, and that we all love it, and he wants to be a part of that.”

Nezumi said nothing. Rai wanted to be a part of everything. Slowly, he was spreading into different aspects of Shion’s life, and each aspect he spread into, Nezumi vacated to give him room—or, rather, to give Shion room to be with him.

But the bakery was his. It was Nezumi’s. He’d opened it with Karan. He’d moved in the furniture, he’d scrubbed the tiles, he’d written the first menu, he’d rung up the first customers, he’d started baking within a month after opening, once Karan declared his baked goods up to her standards and ready to be sampled by the public. And since he started baking, he hadn’t stopped. He’d replaced Karan as the main baker. It was his bakery. It was not his name on the sign, but Nezumi didn’t want that. It was still his.

“Shion said no to this,” Safu said. “A firm no. I was there when Rai mentioned it, and Shion didn’t even hesitate or tell Rai he’d think about it.”

“I don’t want them to fight over me.”

“Rai didn’t fight. He accepted Shion’s decision.”

“Without asking why?”

“Well, I figure he knows why.”

“So then they’re going to fight about it at some point,” Nezumi said. He was rolling out the dough for the buns now but had rolled the rope of it too thin and collected it back in a ball, kneading it together to start again.

“Shion told him if he wanted to learn how to bake, he would teach him in our kitchen.”

“Rai does not give a shit about baking. He wants to be here, in the bakery, because that’s where Shion is when he’s not at home or at school or at the lab. Rai has to be in every single part of Shion’s life,” Nezumi said, keeping his voice even, calm, unconcerned despite the fact that he was incredibly concerned. And annoyed. And worried.

The only times he saw Shion now, casually, times that did not have to be scheduled, that were normal, that were like it used to be, were in the bakery.

“He’s not going to come here.”

Nezumi rolled the bun dough into a rope again, this time the perfect size. He cut it in sections, then started to mold each section into a ball between his palms. He’d flatten out the balls, then add the filling Safu was preparing into each. Shion liked his sweet buns filled with red bean paste, and Karan liked hers filled with coconut. Nezumi liked his filled with custard or chocolate, and Safu liked hers filled with pineapple.

Nezumi did not know what Rai liked his sweet buns filled with. He did not want to know. He wanted the man to disappear, even if it would leave Shion heartbroken, even if it would leave Shion hurt. Nezumi didn’t care. He was selfish, and he always had been, and he’d spent the last few months trying not to be, trying to change for Shion, trying to be a better person for Shion, trying to want happiness for Shion at the expense of his own, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t change who he’d been for over a century and a quarter. Who could change that?

*

“I’m almost fifty,” Karan said to Nezumi, out of the blue, while they walked back from the bakery to their apartment one night.

She had her arm looped through Nezumi’s, which she’d started doing lately, and Nezumi didn’t mind. He craved the touch of someone he cared about. Fucking strangers no longer filled his need for contact, and this was an alarming thing. Now, Nezumi found himself savoring the moments Karan touched his arm or cheek or lower back to move him out of her way in the kitchen, or the times Safu elbowed him or put her hand on his shoulder to lower it when she was trying to look at what he was doing or grabbed his wrist to make him pay attention to her.

Nezumi realized he was a touchy person. He had not noticed this before. He did not think he had been before. But he was, and with Shion in particular—it was instinct to touch his hair, to lean on him, to wrap an arm around his shoulders, to pull at his shirt instead of saying his name to make the man look up from whatever he was doing and look at Nezumi instead. When Nezumi realized he was doing this, he stopped. He figured this type of thing was no longer okay with Rai in the picture, and Shion didn’t say anything to his stopping. Maybe he didn’t even notice.

“What are you talking about?” Nezumi asked Karan.

“I’m forty-seven now. That’s almost fifty.”

“Is it your birthday?” Nezumi asked, and Karan glanced at him.

“Yes, honey. It’s my birthday.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“When do I ever mention my birthday to you?” Karan asked, and Nezumi thought back, realized she never did.

When Shion was younger, he used to throw elaborate parties, which really just entailed dragging Nezumi to the store so Nezumi could buy balloons that they’d blow up together—Shion struggling with his small lungs—and throw around the bakery after close.

“You don’t like birthdays, and I don’t care much for them either. It’s better for both of us not to mention them when they come around,” Karan said.

“You don’t like birthdays?”

“I don’t like seeing myself get so much older than you. We used to look the same age. Remember that? You can’t imagine how upsetting it is for me to look at you now,” Karan said, and Nezumi laughed.

“Sure, you’re the one with the right to be upset. Does Shion know?”

“Of course. He took me out to dinner last night.”

Nezumi glanced at her, surprised he hadn’t been told about this dinner, then realized Rai must have been there. “That’s good.”

Karan walked closer to him. “I hope you’re not jealous.”

“Don’t start this nonsense again. I won’t even respond to that. I’m used to all of this now. We can move past the whole, ‘Nezumi can’t handle it’ bit.”

“You’re used to it? It takes me by surprise still, to see those two together,” Karan said.

“It shouldn’t. It’s been over a year.”

“A year and six months,” Karan said.

Nezumi hadn’t realized it’d been half a year since Shion’s birthday, since Rai had moved into Safu and Shion’s place. That meant in six months, Shion would have another birthday, which seemed absurd.

“When I thought about the future, I always imagined it would always be the three of us. Which is naïve, I suppose. And maybe what every mother wants—for her children not to grow up, not to need or want anyone else. But it was so nice, the three of us. Wasn’t it?”

“Sure,” Nezumi said, leading Karan around the corner. They were a block from their apartment building now. He could see it, the familiar side of it.

“I should say the four of us now. I like Safu. She fits in our family very naturally, don’t you think? Sometimes I forget she only met Shion in college.”

“She’s great,” Nezumi agreed.

“It’s good having her at the bakery so often now.”

“Should we include Mio in our family? She’s been working at the bakery for a few years now,” Nezumi suggested.

Karan laughed. “I don’t know why you pick on Mio so much, she’s a very nice woman.”

“I’m sure she is.” They were at their apartment building, and Nezumi opened the door for Karan. “Have you thought about moving out of here?”

“Where? My apartment? Why would I do that?”

“There’s nicer buildings.”

“Have you thought about moving out?” Karan asked.

“I’ve lived here over a hundred years, Karan. I don’t like change.”

“I don’t like change either. And if I moved, you’d have to move too. I don’t ever plan on living anywhere that’s not across a hallway from you.”

They walked up the stairs together, side by side. One day, Karan wouldn’t live across the hall from him any longer. He couldn’t imagine it, even though before Karan, that had been normal, that had been all he’d known.

*

The bakery was closed, and Nezumi was doing his monthly clean of the kitchen. He was on his knees scrubbing the inside of the oven with steel wool and baking soda when he heard the ding of the front door’s bell and then Shion and Safu’s voices.

“I don’t want to talk about it here, okay?” Shion was saying, and Nezumi paused in his scrubbing.

“I’m not talking about it, I’m just saying you guys can’t be fighting in the middle of the night. We’re getting noise complaints, you know the walls are thin. I’ve told you before that this apartment means a lot to me.”

“You won’t be evicted for a noise complaint, Safu.”

“Not one noise complaint. Noise complaints for three nights in a row.”

“Not here,” Shion said roughly, and then the kitchen door opened, and Shion and Safu burst in.

“Cleaning day?” Safu said, looking at Nezumi kneeling in front of the oven.

Nezumi stood up and set the steel wool sponge in the bowl of baking soda. He pushed his bangs off his forehead with his wrist, as he was wearing rubber gloves.

“Just have one rack left, and the oven’s done. Can one of you mop, and someone else wipe down the inside of the fridge?”

“Good, cleaning day is just what I need, I’ll get the mop and Clorox wipes,” Shion said, truly seeming happy about this and heading back out the kitchen.

“Why is cleaning day what he needs?” Nezumi asked Safu.

“I’m assuming he wants a distraction.”

“From?” 

Safu threw up her hands. “I don’t want to get into this, or he’ll get mad at me. Ask him if you want to know about his life.”

Shion returned then with a mop and the bucket and a tube of wipes. Safu took the wipes from him.

“Empty everything out of the fridge before wiping all the shelves and side shelves and inside the drawers too,” Nezumi told her.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And take out the drawers and wipe the bottoms and sides of them, not just the insides.”

“Okay!” Safu said.

Nezumi glanced at Shion, who’d finished filling the bucket at the sink and was pouring dish soap into it. “Why are you two in such good moods?” he asked.

Shion looked at him briefly, then continued squeezing the soap.

“Not all the soap, Your Majesty, it’ll make too much suds.”

“Can you not micro-manage me?” Shion asked. “I grew up in this bakery too, I’ve participated in countless cleaning days, I’ve mopped this floor a hundred times.”

“If you’re angry with your boyfriend, don’t take it out on me,” Nezumi told him.

“Safu!” Shion shouted, slamming the dish soap on the counter. “You told him?”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Safu said, throwing things from the fridge onto the counter.

“Don’t break the counter, Safu. And I heard you two shouting about noise complaints since you came into the bakery, I’m not deaf.”

Shion sighed dramatically. “It’s nothing. We’re fighting. People fight. I came here to think about anything else.”

“What are you fighting about?”

“What did I just say?” Shion asked.

“Suit yourself. I’m great in conflict resolution, I figured I could lend a hand.”

Shion scoffed, and Nezumi crouched in front of the oven again to resume his scrubbing.

He’d finished the oven and was helping Safu with the fridge when Shion spoke up again, as Nezumi had known he would. The guy didn’t know how not to say what was on his mind.

“Did you feel like I was neglecting you?” Shion asked.

Nezumi paused in wiping down a shelf on the door of the fridge. “Me?”

Shion stood in the corner of the kitchen with the mop in his hands, his fists tight around the handle. “When we were dating. Did you think I worked too much?”

“You do work too much. You’re a workaholic. You slept in your lab at least two nights a month,” Nezumi reminded.

“I’m passionate about my research. Why should that be a problem? It’s a good thing to love your work, how many people can say that?” Shion demanded.

Nezumi raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t say it was a problem. I’m assuming Rai said it was a problem.”

“He gets mad at me for coming home at two in the morning from the lab. It’s my work! It’s not like I’m out all night partying, this is my job! I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my job because he feels lonely! And then he gets mad when I am home but have to grade essays. I’m not a kindergarten teacher like him, I can’t just put stickers on their homework and call it a day, I have to actually take the time to make meaningful assessments of my students’ efforts. They pay a lot of money to come to the university, they deserve my time and attention.”

Nezumi glanced at Safu. “I’m assuming this is what is being shouted in the apartment at odd hours of the morning?”

“God, the number of times I’ve heard this,” Safu groaned. “Shion, why are you trying to convince us? We don’t care if you work! It’s Rai who cares, and really, is that so bad that he just wants to spend more time with you?”

“He makes me feel guilty for loving my job! Like it’s some mistress, it’s so ridiculous.” 

“Did you just say mistress?” Nezumi asked.

“You didn’t feel like that, did you? When we dated, and I came home late, or I was busy with work, you didn’t feel left out or neglected or like I didn’t prioritize spending time with you, did you? He talks about that all the time. _Prioritizing_. I prioritize him!”

“I like me a working man,” Nezumi said, resuming his wiping of the shelf. “As long as you were out bringing home the bacon, I was content to wait for you at home like a patient and supporting househusband.”

Safu giggled, but Shion did not seem to be listening at all.

“He’s been saying this bullshit now about how, now that we’re living together, we see even less of each other, because I don’t have to carve out time in my day to spend with him, so in the end we hardly see each other at all. Which isn’t true. I don’t even spend that many nights at the lab, which means most nights we’re sleeping in the same bed. He acts like I’m some phantom he never sees. I shouldn’t have to apologize for working.”

“He misses you. The poor guy,” Nezumi said, moving onto another shelf.

“Don’t take his side! He’s being ridiculous!”

“I’ve learned it’s best not to say anything,” Safu whispered.

“And apparently,” Shion continued, “looking for a new apartment doesn’t count as spending time together. Even though we do it together. But no, that’s apparently just another form of work, and what he wants is time for us to do nothing. Who has time to do nothing? What does that even mean? Why should I prioritize doing nothing?”

Nezumi had been examining Safu’s side of the fridge to make sure she’d done it properly, but he looked back at Shion. “You’re moving out of Safu’s?”

Shion had not moved from his corner. He’d only mopped half the kitchen, and now the mop wasn’t even in his hands, but leaning against the wall. His hands were on his hips, and his shoulders slumped. “He wants to look at places, but I’m at a crucial moment in my research for an article that needs to be finished and peer reviewed by the first of August. That gives me two months to not only complete the research but write a few drafts. So I asked if we could look at places to move _after_ I submitted the article. And what does he say to that?”

“That you’re not prioritizing moving out,” Safu piped up, her lips twitching.

Shion threw up his hands. “Exactly! Somehow it all translates into that I don’t care about moving out, I don’t want to move out, I’m dragging my feet on our future, I’m reluctant to commit, all because I’m trying meet a deadline for an esteemed journal publication. So that has to mean I don’t want to move on and progress our relationship into the next phase. What does any of this have to do with the phases of our relationship? I’m just trying to make a name for myself in my field, how did our relationship get involved?”

“We can put everything back, it looks good,” Nezumi told Safu, nodding at the items from the fridge they’d unloaded onto the counter.

“I don’t know what the rush is anyway. He just moved into our apartment, why’s he trying to move again? But I can’t ask that, or he’ll think I’m scared of committing to our relationship. I’m _not_ scared of commitment. I’m all for commitment. I just don’t want commitment to be tied to the hours I’m working. I just can’t see how that should be related, but apparently that’s irrational thinking. Who knew?”

“Shion, if you’re not going to mop, help Safu reload the fridge, I’ll finish up. I’m not trying to be here all night,” Nezumi told him.

“I am mopping, what does it look like I’m doing?” Shion demanded.

“It looks like you’re standing there rambling about commitment. Am I going blind?” Nezumi asked, glancing at Safu. “Is he actually mopping? Am I missing it?”

Safu smiled lightly. “Yeah, you’re missing it,” she said.

“Seriously, Your Majesty, either mop or hand the thing over.”

“And that!” Shion shouted. “Somehow, he brings up that!”

“What?”

“ _Your Majesty_ ,” Shion repeated. “Somehow, in all this, not only is my work related to our relationship, but also included in this bizarre correlation of unrelated things is _Your Majesty._ ”

“I think you should just mop, he’s not going to do it,” Safu said, but Nezumi barely paid her attention.

“What are you talking about?” Nezumi asked, stepping closer to him.

Shion waved his hand as if to brush off how ridiculous he found it all. “We were looking through childhood photos the other day, and there’s one of my birthday where you wrote, ‘Happy birthday, Your Majesty,’ on my cake, and I was, I don’t know, sixteen or something, but Rai wouldn’t let it go. He kept asking why you call me that, and I kept asking why he cared, and I mean, I don’t know why you call me that, you thought it was funny to call me spoiled or something and then it just stuck, who can remember?”

Nezumi leaned against the side of the counter, watching Shion get worked up, wondering when this had happened, this fight about him, if it was a normal thing, if it happened a lot.

“And so I told Rai that if he has these unspoken feelings about you, he should just get them out,” Shion kept on, “or they’d fester forever and ruin us, and then he got mad at me for that, for saying he wasn’t supportive of my friendship with you, which wasn’t even what I’d said, but that was his interpretation somehow. And then he asked if that was why I worked so much, because I didn’t want to progress our relationship because I was still hung up on you, as if—as if that’s even fair! When he knows I’m not! When I’ve told him a hundred times I’m not! When we’ve had this discussion over and over and over, and I can’t stand to have it again! The fact that I keep having to reassure him is so infuriating and just unbelievable, frankly!”

Nezumi kept his expression blank. If Rai was going to break up with Shion, it couldn’t have anything to do with Nezumi. If Rai couldn’t date a workaholic, that would work. But if Rai couldn’t date Shion because he thought Shion had feelings for Nezumi, then it would be Nezumi Shion would blame.

Shion took a deep breath, let it out dramatically. “I should mop,” he said sullenly, seeming to only just notice the mop against the wall beside him. Nezumi watched Shion mop for a minute before he walked over and grabbed the handle.

“What—”

“You didn’t ring it out, so the floor is now soaked, and you’re dragging it around senselessly. Let me do it. Go eat a muffin, there’s leftovers in that Tupperware there. Go, you’ll just make more work for me.”

Shion released the mop and said things under his breath that Nezumi didn’t bother trying to make out. He wrung out the mop, then worked to soak up the puddle Shion’s mopping had caused.

While Safu finished with the fridge and Nezumi finished mopping, Shion sat on top of the counter and ate muffin after muffin. Nezumi put the cleaning supplies back in the closet and returned to the kitchen to see that Safu had joined him on the counter. Shion swung his legs lightly, the heels of his tennis shoes tapping the cabinet below him.

Nezumi walked over to them, stood across from the both of them, and held out his hand, and Shion gave him the rest of the muffin he’d been eating.

“I like that you mixed blueberries and blackberries. It’s good,” he said, still sounding a bit sullen.

“Thanks. Listen, what if I talked to him?”

Shion just looked at him. Nezumi finished his muffin.

“Talked to who?” Shion finally asked. “Not Rai.”

“The one and only.”

“What could you possibly say that would help the situation?” Shion asked, sounding incredulous.

“I’m very convincing.”

“Yes, I know, that’s the problem. What exactly will you be convincing him?”

Nezumi smiled lightly. “Trust me a little. I’m on your side on all battles. Don’t you know that?”

“No,” Shion said flatly.

“What would you say?” Safu asked, leaning forward and licking her thumb.

Nezumi shrugged. “He’s worried your late hours are an evasive move because you’re still pining for me. But they’re not. You had long hours when you were dating me too. I rarely saw you. You just love to work, it’s got nothing to do with me or Rai. That’s the truth, right? So I don’t really see how it can make anything worse.”

Shion narrowed his eyes.

“That was pretty convincing,” Safu said.

“It wasn’t. I’m not convinced,” Shion said.

“You don’t still think I want you, do you? That’s very cute, but I’m not interested in Rai’s sloppy seconds. Or thirds, I guess, since you were my seconds.”

Shion looked at Nezumi flatly.

“Come on. Let me help you. If you think I can only be motivated by selfish reasons, fine, I can work with that. Think of it this way. If Rai does break up with you because he thinks you’re still head over heels for me, then you’ll blame me and never speak to me again. Right? Isn’t that how it’ll go?”

“Yes, it is. I will blame you. Because it will be your fault,” Shion said pointedly.

Nezumi clapped his hands together. “There you go! We’re on the same page. Since talking to you is the highlight of my mediocre existence, I certainly can’t have you cold shouldering me for the foreseeable future—”

“Forever. It will be forever,” Shion cut in.

Nezumi glared at him. “I get the point. Do you get mine? We both want the same thing—for Rai to remain smitten and not insecure. Take a break from disturbing your neighbors with your nightly arguments and let me have a chat with him.”

Shion continued to look skeptical, and it was a look Nezumi was well-accustomed to. His expressions were the same as when he was a little kid and Nezumi tried to trick him into silence when he babysat for him, making up some lie about a government faction that came after children who said more than two hundred words a day because they were contributing to noise pollution.

But Shion was no longer six years old. He was twenty-six, and it was alarming how much had changed. Most alarming was how sexy his skeptical look had become.

Nezumi leaned back from him, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting. Thoughts like that were no good. Shion would see right through him. The guy could always see more of Nezumi than Nezumi preferred.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Safu said.

Shion glanced at her. “I can think of many things.”

“But what’s the _worst_?” she pressed.

“Nezumi ruins my relationship. Rai breaks up with me. I kill Nezumi and live the rest of my life alone and pissed that I ended up giving Nezumi what he wanted instead of making him suffer the way he deserves,” Shion said.

“See, that’s not so bad,” Safu said cheerfully, then laughed when Shion didn’t crack a smile.

“Hey,” Nezumi said, stepping forward until he was right in front of Shion. Because Shion was sitting on the sink counter, his knees came up to Nezumi’s waist. Nezumi had to look up at him. He wrapped his hands around Shion’s calves, just below his knees, and Shion glanced down but didn’t move his legs away.

Nezumi missed touching him. Just this was enough. Hardly a touch. It couldn’t count.

“I’m not going to ruin your relationship. Rai is good for you. He treats you right. I didn’t do that, I know, and I can’t change that now, but I can make up for it. Let me make up for it. He’ll keep wondering if he’s just some second choice to you, but I know you more than anyone, and if that was true at the beginning, it’s not true now, it hasn’t been true for a while now. I can see that clearly. I can make him see that like I do. Promise.” 

Shion stared down at him. What Nezumi wanted was to tighten his grip on Shion’s legs. Pull them apart and stand in the gap between them and yank Shion forward and kiss him hard, rough, angrily, in a way Rai doubtfully did because Rai refused to hurt Shion, but Nezumi had already hurt him, would hurt him again, easily, easily.

But he kept his grip loose. He stood with an inch between his body and Shion’s knees. He didn’t kiss him, he didn’t even look at Shion’s lips.

“Okay,” Shion finally said.

Nezumi loved when Shion fucked him, but what he would have killed for now, at this moment, was to fuck Shion. He wanted to pull Shion’s hair until Shion’s eyes watered, until he gasped at the pain. He wanted to bite Shion’s skin until it broke and the warm, iron taste of his blood wet Nezumi’s lips. He wanted to smear Shion’s blood over his own lips so he could taste it too. He wanted to hurt Shion. He wanted Shion to feel what Nezumi felt.

Nezumi let his hands drop from Shion’s legs and stepped back from him. He smiled. “Good. And don’t look so worried. You can trust me, Your Majesty.”

Shion’s worry did not disappear from his features. Shion was too smart not to be a little suspicious, a little worried. It was one of the things Nezumi loved about him. The challenge of lying to Shion kept it from getting boring, the way it was with everyone else.

*

Thanks to Rai’s invitation to Shion’s surprise party, Nezumi had his number. He texted Rai after Shion and Safu left the bakery, a simple—

_Can we talk?_

Rai texted back hours later, when Nezumi was in the middle of fucking some guy who looked nothing like Shion. But he was wearing the same tennis sneakers Shion had, and the moment Nezumi saw this at the bar, he’d gone up to the guy and ignored the guy’s giggling friends and said, “I want to fuck you. Yes or no?”

The guy was now underneath Nezumi, on his stomach, his hands clutching the bedsheets and his whimpers loud and escalating with every thrust. Nezumi had made him keep on his sneakers and glanced back at them every so often.

Nezumi didn’t know Rai had texted until after he finished with Tennis Shoes. He brought Tennis Shoes a glass of water that the man drank eagerly, wiping his wet lips with the back of his arm and still panting.

“Again?” Tennis Shoes asked, while Nezumi checked his phone.

Rai’s text was also simple—

_Sure. There’s a coffee place across from my school called Java Monster. Free tomorrow at four?_

Nezumi confirmed and threw his phone down, then contemplated the man on his bed. He was really a boy. His ID said he was twenty-one. He was American and in university, studying abroad. He had red hair and freckles all over his body. He was oddly tall and lanky, like a normal person who’d been stretched out, but he had wide wide eyes that made him look childish, especially now with the way he was looking up at Nezumi on his knees on Nezumi’s bed, holding his empty glass with both hands in front of him. He spoke shitty Japanese with a horrible accent, but this was fine. Nezumi didn’t have any desire to talk to him.

Tennis Shoes licked his lips. He was still breathing hard. It was amazing that he hadn’t caught his breath yet when he’d really done nothing but laid there underneath Nezumi while Nezumi did whatever he wanted with him.

“Please?” Tennis Shoes asked. There was something pathetic about him, but Nezumi didn’t mind this.

He nodded. “Yeah. Again.”

There was nothing satisfying in fucking this stranger who had the same tennis shoes as Shion. But it was a way to pass the time, and Nezumi had so much time, he had to get rid of it somehow.

*

Nezumi had forgotten how good-looking Rai was. He was not happy for the reminder. While Rai ordered a coffee, Nezumi watched him chat with the barista and sipped his tea at the table he’d chosen by the window and tried to remember the last time he’d seen Rai.

It would have been Shion’s birthday party, eight months before. But Nezumi hadn’t been sober enough to properly look at him, to even notice how good-looking he was. Before Shion’s birthday, the last time Nezumi had seen him was when Rai showed up at Safu’s apartment asking her permission to move in. Nezumi couldn’t remember when that was.

Rai got his coffee and sat across from Nezumi at the small table. Nezumi had gotten to the coffee shop ten minutes early. He hadn’t minded waiting. He felt comfortable now, at this table, making Rai think he was late and apologize when he walked in even though he was actually a minute early—Nezumi had checked the time on his phone even though he hated checking the time.

“So,” Rai said. He had his coffee cup open and held the lid with one hand and stirred the coffee with a wooden stick with the other. “You wanted to talk.”

“You work there?” Nezumi asked, pointing out the window across the street to the school where kids were still streaming out, tiny versions of normal people with backpacks that looked like half their body weight. Looking at the kids reminded Nezumi of when he’d pick up Shion from school some afternoons when Karan couldn’t leave the bakery and Shion was still too young to walk from school to the bakery on his own.

“Yeah. It’s great. There’s nothing like kids, they all just say what they’re thinking. I love that.”

Nezumi looked away from the window. “That’s probably why you like Shion,” he said.

Rai took the wooden stick from his cup and rested it on a napkin on the table. He took a sip of his coffee without replacing the plastic lid and licked his lips. He had good lips. Pretty boy lips.

“He is straightforward, that’s true,” Rai finally said. “I’m assuming he’s what you want to talk about, since we don’t really have much else in common. I don’t mind if you just jump into it. You don’t seem like someone who cares for small talk.”

Nezumi tucked his bangs behind his ears. “So you don’t want to talk politics with me?”

“We can. This is your chat, I’m open to any topic.”

Rai’s tone was completely amicable, friendly. Nezumi still couldn’t tell if this was an act or not. The guy had no reason to be friendly with him. But then, some people were friendly with no ulterior motives. Shion would be into such a thing.

Nezumi rested his elbows on the table and held his cup in his palms. It had cooled in the time since he’d ordered it and didn’t properly warm his hands anymore.

“You two have been fighting. You think he works too much, doesn’t prioritize you,” Nezumi said, and there was a flinch in Rai’s patient expression, but even that, Nezumi couldn’t read.

“He told you that?” Rai asked.

“Not really. He and Safu were arguing about your late-night fighting yesterday in the bakery. Noise complaints and all,” Nezumi said, shrugging a shoulder. “But Shion didn’t really want me to know, it just came out.”

Nezumi thought about Shion’s spiel, the anger pouring out of him, his frustration with Rai. It gave Nezumi no pleasure for Shion to be frustrated with Rai. Nezumi did not want Shion to even think about Rai. He didn’t want Rai to provoke emotion in Shion at all, hot or cold. He didn’t want them to fight in the middle of the night. He didn’t want Rai anywhere near Shion in the middle of the night.

Rai looked down into his cup. He still held the lid in one his palms. Nezumi didn’t know why he didn’t just put it on the table beside his wooden stirrer.

“Does he talk about me to you often?” Rai asked, looking up from his cup.

“No.”

Rai looked out the window. “We talk about you a lot,” he said. His profile was good-looking too. He had thick eyelashes that enhanced his pretty boy look. People often told Nezumi he was beautiful, and he suspected it was the same for Rai. Maybe that was Shion’s type. Beautiful men. Nezumi wondered if Shion looked at Rai, examined his features the way Nezumi was examining him, and compared these features to Nezumi’s.

Nezumi did not ask Rai what he and Shion said when they talked about him. Instead, he said, “He worked a lot when we were dating too. Shion and I,” Nezumi clarified, as if Rai might have thought Nezumi meant _me and you_ when he’d said _we._

Rai looked at him. His eyes were a dark enough brown that they just looked black. But they were warm and beautiful too. He probably looked most beautiful in the early mornings, waking beside Shion, sleepy with his eyelids heavy over those deep black eyes.

“I wasn’t wild about it, having some days when I only saw him for an hour during the day if I was lucky, or him coming home from the lab at five in the morning just to get up at seven for a class. He gives his work a lot of attention. It’s mostly admirable, but it’s irritating too.”

“Are you telling me to get over it?” Rai asked, after a moment.

“Not at all. You shouldn’t, if you don’t want to. Shion needs to hear when he’s overworking himself, he’s incapable of anything close to self-restraint. It’s good that you yell at him. Someone should. I’m just telling you that Shion has always been work-obsessed. He said you think it has something to do with you, that you’re convinced he’s avoiding you on purpose.”

“He told you that?” Rai asked, leaning closer.

“He’s worried about you. He’s worried about losing you. He’s worried you don’t realize what you mean to him.”

“And you’re here to tell me how much I mean to him,” Rai said slowly, like he was trying out the words to see if they made more sense when he said them.

Nezumi smiled. “I’m trying to make amends. I keep fucking up his life. I owe him enough that I should probably try to fix something now.”

Rai finally set the lid down, on top of the wooden stirrer and napkin. He sipped his coffee and looked in his cup afterward as if what he’d drunk wasn’t what he’d expected, and then he set his cup down. He tilted his head and looked at Nezumi, and Nezumi wondered if he ever looked at Shion like this, what Shion made of this look, because Nezumi himself had no idea what to make of it, had no idea how to read it. He had no idea what Rai was thinking, and it was disconcerting not to know, it was unsettling, he wondered how Shion could stand it, how it didn’t drive Shion crazy.

“You’re Shion’s favorite person in the world,” Rai said, after giving Nezumi this look for a while, after Nezumi wondered if he was going crazy.

“Other than you,” Nezumi offered, relieved that Rai had finally spoken.

“No,” Rai said, shaking his head. “You don’t have to do that. I know I’m second to you. That’s fine. I wouldn’t want him to love me more than you. I think that might be a little terrifying.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. Why did Shion want a man like this? He was unsettling, and Nezumi was not often unsettled. He was unreadable, inaccessible. He seemed open and sincere, but he also seemed smart. And smart people didn’t lay out all their cards, but Nezumi couldn’t guess what Rai’s hidden cards could possibly be.

“I don’t know you well, Nezumi,” Rai said. “We’ve only met a few times, and in not one of those times have I felt as if I’ve really gotten to know you. But Shion likes you so much, it must mean you are an incredible person. I trust Shion’s judgment. He’s very intelligent, and he’s very kind, which is not a common combination. Usually, I think, intelligent people tend to see too much of humanity, and to understand too well that the bad can’t be ignored, and that hardens them. But that hasn’t happened to Shion.”

“You don’t have to describe Shion to me. I know him pretty well,” Nezumi said, and Rai smiled.

“Of course. You know him better than anyone but Karan. Probably more than her, since you both raised and dated him, whereas she only did the former.”

Nezumi leaned back. “I didn’t raise him.”

“I don’t mean to imply anything,” Rai said, shrugging and drinking more of his coffee.

“Then what are you meaning to say to me?” Nezumi asked, annoyed, unnerved, regretting talking with Rai in a coffee shop instead of a bar. He didn’t want to be sober around this guy. If he was going to be confused, if he was going to feel off-balanced, he wanted alcohol to be the reason.

Rai sighed and flattened his hands over the table, looking down at his own fanned fingers as if the words might be in the spaces between. “When Shion thinks about all of our futures, I imagine he sees you babysitting our children. And so I know, at some point, I will have to decide whether I feel safe with you babysitting our children.”

Nezumi was not able to hide his surprise at this sudden change in topic, which he knew because Rai addressed it.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to shock you. Shion wants kids, and so do I. I figure at some point, it’ll happen. And then, like I said, I’ll be confronted with this decision. Shion will ask me if I feel comfortable with you babysitting. So I’ve been thinking about it already—it’s strange, I know, but I like imagining my future, I get anxious not knowing what will happen next, I’ve been that way since I was little. And I know you won’t hurt Shion’s kids because everything you do is with Shion in mind. But I wonder how they’ll turn out, the children you babysit. I wonder how it will shape their personalities, if you help raise them.”

“According to you, I helped raise Shion,” Nezumi reminded when he was finally able to speak, deciding the rest of Rai’s words were too bizarre to address.

“You did. And Shion fell in love with you in a way that’s not altogether healthy.”

“You’re worried your hypothetical future kids are going to fall in love with me?” Nezumi asked, incredulous.

Rai laughed. “No, no, not at all. I mean, they might, you have a very seductive quality about you. But really, I think there’s a risk that some part of them won’t recover from your influence. Parts of Shion aren’t going to recover from you. You know that already.”

Nezumi clenched his jaw. Rai wasn’t speaking in a condescending tone. He didn’t sound polite, or friendly, or angry, or spiteful. He sounded nothing but plain, like he was stating facts that were obvious and almost apologetic to be wasting Nezumi’s time by pointing them out.

“I guess this is an odd way to say that I know that so long as I’m with Shion, every decision in my life will involve you. I think you came here to tell me that’s not true. To tell me that his working has nothing to do with you, that our fights should have nothing to do with you, that our search for a new apartment has nothing to do with you. But everything Shion does has to do with you, just as everything you do has to do with him. Like you’re tied by strings.”

Nezumi remembered, then, the very first time he kissed Shion. The moments before that, when they were in a museum looking at dead bugs in glass cases and Shion said to him— _Our lives feel tied together. Like I’m attached to you, or you’re attached to me. Like we’re tied by strings, and I’m constantly being pulled to you. I have to figure out how to detach._

Nezumi felt as if Shion had detached. He barely saw Shion anymore. Shion had a separate life now, he’d figured out how to do it, and just because Nezumi saw the man occasionally didn’t mean it was anything like the way it used to be.

“Maybe you think I’m pathetic, wanting a man who’s tied to someone else the way he is to you. But I find it amazing that he has the capacity to feel so much, to form such a bond the way he has with you. It shows an extreme complexity of emotion I don’t think most people ever experience or are able to experience. Being loved by him, even if it is less than he loves you, is still going to be more than most people even know how to love, all because he’s lived his whole life knowing nothing more than how to feel in extremes. And that’s because of you. So I don’t hate you, even though I think you want me to, or expect me to, or it’d be easier if I did. But I don’t. You’re the reason Shion is who he is.”

Nezumi bristled. “Are you thanking me?”

“I wouldn’t say it like that. I just want you to know that I don’t dislike you or think we should waste any time being enemies or something silly like that. Marrying Shion means making you a permanent part of my life, so disliking you would be pointless. I’d much rather like you.”

“You’re marrying him?” Nezumi asked, the words sounding stupid the moment they fell out of his mouth, almost abruptly, almost too loud.

Rai’s eyebrows creased. “Well, I haven’t proposed yet, I wouldn’t say we’re engaged. But we’ve discussed it, it’s what’s going to happen eventually. Ideally, we should have our own place first, and I don’t think he wants to get married at twenty-six. Not that that’s young, but he has some preoccupation with our age difference. That may also be due to your influence,” Rai said, his frown lifting into a small smile.

Nezumi looked out the window, needing a break from Rai’s face. There were no longer kids around the school. They were probably all home by now, under the care of their parents, or maybe their babysitters.

“I thought—I figured he’d have told you when we started talking about it. But you did just tell me you don’t talk about me. Shit. Sorry, Nezumi. I didn’t mean to tell you like that. It won’t be a concrete plan for a few years. I think he wants to wait until he’s thirty.”

Nezumi looked at Rai when he finally shut up again. “Don’t apologize to me,” he said shortly. “And if you’re promised to each other, why’s he coming to me all worried you’re going to break up with him because of me?”

Rai looked back at his coffee cup. Then up again. Nezumi hated that, that he couldn’t just answer a question without taking the time to think of a reply, that he couldn’t just say the first thought he had, that he had to plan everything out. It was infuriating. Everything about him was infuriating.

“I imagine that might also be your influence,” Rai finally said, quietly, apologetically, and Nezumi wanted to hit him. “He’s used to be being broken up with, no matter how much he’s loved, no matter how well things are going in the relationship.”

“Seriously? You’re going to blame his insecurity on me? You can’t take any responsibility for anything?” Nezumi demanded. He hated that he could hear his anger in his voice. He hated that Rai wasn’t angry, that Rai was composed, that Rai didn’t even seem cool and distant, but completely relaxed and open, like Nezumi was a friend he was confiding in when he was not, they were not friends, and Nezumi sure as hell would never babysit his fucking kids.

“I’m not trying to blame everything on you. I’m sorry it’s coming out that way—”

“Stop apologizing!” Nezumi snapped, standing up.

Rai lifted his hands. “Nezumi, don’t storm out,” he said quickly.

Nezumi’s hands were in fists. He hated Rai’s composure. He hated that he was the one who was making the idiot out of himself. But he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know how.

“Just—I don’t—I don’t want us to be like this. I really don’t. I know it’s hard for you, I’m trying to make it easier, I think I keep screwing up, but you make me nervous—” Rai said, talking fast, and Nezumi didn’t understand this either, he didn’t understand any of it.

But mostly, what he didn’t understand was why Shion loved him. Why Shion was going to marry him. Why Shion was going to raise kids with him. He didn’t understand if it was his fault or not, that Shion was moving on when Nezumi thought he’d made it clear he couldn’t handle that, he couldn’t manage that, he couldn’t deal with that. Shion didn’t know how to be selfish. He didn’t know how to put himself before the people he cared about. So why was he putting himself before Nezumi? Why was he doing this?

“I was so glad when you texted wanting to talk. I want to talk to you. I want—If we can’t be friends, then, then something, anything, I’ll take it,” Rai insisted.

Nezumi looked at him, this man who was good-looking, who had a job he loved, who had a boyfriend he loved, who was going to get married and have a family and knew all of this, who had a perfect life. He’d live this perfect life and then he’d die at the end of it, and Nezumi didn’t think he’d ever hated anyone more.

He didn’t say anything to Rai. He left the coffee shop. Rai did not come after him, and Nezumi was almost sorry for that. He wanted the man to run after him. He wanted the asshole to go after something he couldn’t have instead of getting everything he wanted and not seeming to mind at all when he didn’t.

*

Nezumi walked out of the theater after a night show, signed the autographs of the lingering fans, then headed across the street, but he stopped in the middle of the road. Sitting on the curb in front of his apartment building was Shion, arms wrapped around his legs and chin resting on his knees.

Nezumi walked slowly to him, then sat down beside him. The sidewalk was cool through his jeans.

“It’s past your bedtime, Your Majesty,” he said, because he used to say this to Shion when Shion was a teen and would sneak out of his and Karan’s apartment to watch Nezumi’s night shows. Nezumi would walk out of the theater to find him like this, waiting on the sidewalk to tell Nezumi all the thoughts he had on his performance that night. They’d sit like this for a little before Nezumi took Shion back into the building. Every time, in the hallway between their apartments, he told Shion that this had to be the last time he snuck out, that if his mom found out she’d worry. And every time, Shion looked Nezumi in the eye and said he wouldn’t sneak out again.

He was a liar at a young age, and Nezumi knew he’d taught him that.

“You were beautiful,” Shion said.

“Thanks.”

“Rai told me you guys talked yesterday.”

“Do we have to talk about it?” Nezumi asked, sighing.

“He told me that marriage came up. Our plans for it. That we’ve talked about it. And kids. He said he thought you knew, he thought I’d told you.”

“I was there, I know all this. Shion, I’m asking you not to talk to me about this. I’m asking you as a favor, don’t talk to me about this, I don’t want to do this.”

Shion’s eyes flicked back and forth between Nezumi’s. “Okay,” he said quietly.

Nezumi leaned back on his palms. He looked at the theater across the street. The night was dark and cold. He was tired, had been planning on just going to bed, but now he thought, when Shion went home, he’d go to a bar, have a few drinks, fuck someone he didn’t know.

“I stopped working on your cure at the lab,” Shion said.

“Good,” Nezumi said.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“No.”

“I told you I’d keep trying forever. I told you I’d never stop no matter how impossible it seemed.”

Nezumi looked for stars in the black sky. He couldn’t stop looking. One day, he’d live to see them. He knew he would.

“I stopped because—what if I figure it out? What if I’m married and have kids and have a life outside of you, and I figure out how to cure you? What happens then?” Shion asked.

Nezumi squinted at the sky. “You’re more self-centered than I thought.” 

“I was surprised too. I gave up the possibility of your mortality so I don’t have to face a possible ethical dilemma in the future. I’m amazed by my own selfishness.”

“Well, it was never really possible,” Nezumi offered, looking away from the sky to see Shion staring at him.

“Even now, you try to make me feel better,” he said.

Nezumi took in Shion’s disbelieving expression. “Even now,” he confirmed.

Shion rested his chin back on his knees and wrapped his arms tighter around his legs. “It’s cold,” he murmured.

Nezumi shifted closer to him until their sides touched. He didn’t do any more than that. It was Shion who leaned into him, who pressed his body closer.

“We could go inside. To your mom’s, I mean. Have some tea.”

“I want to stay out here.”

It was the same thing Shion used to say when he was younger, and Nezumi would insist it was time to go to bed, that it was near midnight, that he had school in the morning.

_I want to stay out here._ So Nezumi would let him, would sit beside him and let time pass. Just for a little while longer.

*

Shion went home eventually, and Nezumi went to a bar. He didn’t want to fuck anyone, or to be fucked. What he wanted was to be kissed softly. What he wanted was to be touched gently, his skin traced like it was a map to guide the lost. What he wanted was to have his hair tucked behind his ears with fingers that lingered by his ears, then trickled down his neck, then found their way to his collarbones, then drifted lower to settle over his heart. He wanted someone to lay their hand on his chest, to check for its beats and tell him, _It’s amazing, your heart. How long it’s been beating. How it’ll beat forever._

He wanted someone to confirm that it was beating still. That it hadn’t stopped. That it hadn’t broken. That it was the same as it had always been and it would always be, and everything he felt was just in his head, was not real, was not permanent.

He found no one at the bar who would do this for him. He found no one at the bar he wanted to do this for him. He brought a girl home and fucked her and made her leave the moment he finished. She called him an asshole, and that felt even better than the sex had.

When she was gone, Nezumi laid in bed and couldn’t sleep. He got up again, pulled on a t-shirt and jeans over his boxers, and left his apartment to knock on Karan’s door.

She opened after he’d assumed she wouldn’t.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“I want to marry him,” he said, not knowing this was what he was going to say, and then it was there hanging in the air between them.

She looked at him for a moment, then stepped aside from the doorway. “Come in, honey.”

Nezumi shook his head, dragged his hand over his face. “What time is it? I woke you. I’m sorry. I don’t know what—” He pushed his fingers into his bangs, held them up off his face, his grip tightening. He didn’t know what he had come here for. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know why he’d said he wanted to marry Shion.

He didn’t. He just wanted to spend his life with Shion. His whole life. All of it. Forever. The never-endingness of it. He wanted that, he wanted Shion to live forever, he wanted someone else to be cursed with him, anyone else, he needed that. He couldn’t keep being alone. He couldn’t do it any longer.

“Nezumi,” Karan said, reaching out, but Nezumi stepped back from her.

“Why did you move here? Why did you have to move here?” he asked her, and he didn’t want her answer, so he left her standing there and went to the stairway and left the apartment building.

He didn’t know what time it was. He wasn’t sure if he was still drunk or not. He headed back to the cluster of bars he frequented, hoping they’d be open. He just needed to get through the night. Then he could deal with tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the rest of the nights, all of them, he just had to get through all of them.

*


	22. Chapter 22

Nezumi did not expect to see Shion in the bakery the next day. He rarely came to the bakery more than once a week, and he’d already come earlier that week when he’d come in raging about his late-night fights with Rai. So Nezumi figured he wouldn’t have to see the guy for at least a few more days, which would give the bruises time to appear less dramatic, and for this reason, he hadn’t bothered covering anything up with make-up.

But he was wrong in his calculations, as Shion did come into the bakery the next day. The morning rush had just finished, and Nezumi was taking a break by sifting flour that didn’t really need to be sifted from one bowl into another.

The kitchen door swung open, and Nezumi expected Karan, who’d covered her mouth when she saw him that morning, or Mio, who’d actually screamed when she’d seen him, which had been such a dramatic reaction it startled Nezumi.

But it was Shion, who immediately was in front of Nezumi, hand beneath Nezumi’s jaw to tilt Nezumi’s face towards him.

Nezumi winced. “Shit,” he breathed.

“Sorry,” Shion whispered, releasing Nezumi’s face. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I walked into a telephone pole last night. I was drunk.”

“How many times did you walk into this pole?”

Nezumi licked his lips. His bottom lip was split and swollen, and the split kept reopening. He tasted his own blood again.

“A few,” he said.

“You won’t tell me what happened?”

“I just did.”

“You got the shit beat out of you, Nezumi,” Shion said.

“If you know what happened, I don’t see why I need to tell you,” Nezumi said back, pushing Shion by his shoulder, not hard, but not gently either. “Give me space, you’re crowding me.”

“I think your nose is broken.”

Nezumi’s nose had been throbbing nonstop. He was pretty sure he’d heard a crack when he’d been hit, but he was trying not to think about it. It had been swollen and oddly shaped and a violent, blotchy purple when Nezumi had stared at it in his mirror that morning, and he was completely aware of this. He didn’t need it pointed out to him. “It’s fine.”

“If you don’t fix it, it’ll stay like that. You’re an actor, your work relies on your face.”

Nezumi blinked. He’d forgotten about work. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. Let me fix it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll need to snap it back into place.”

Nezumi lifted his hands to his face, not touching his skin but blocking his nose. He stared at Shion. “Get away from me.”

“It’ll take two seconds. Come on.”

Nezumi slowly lowered his hands. Shion lifted his own, and Nezumi leaned back from him, eyeing him warily.

“It’s okay,” Shion said.

Nezumi let out his breath. Leaned forward. Watched Shion’s eyes train on his nose, and then he felt Shion’s fingers on his face, and he winced at their touch even though Shion was gentle, barely touching him.

“This is awful, Nezumi,” Shion whispered.

“Just do it.”

“I mean the rest of your face. All of it.”

Nezumi said nothing. Waited.

“Do you want me to count to three?”

“No, I want you to just do it,” Nezumi said shortly, and the moment he finished speaking, the pressure of Shion’s fingers on both sides of his nose increased, and then there was another crack and a flash of hot pain. Nezumi’s eyes watered as he lowered down, cursing. _“Fuck!_ Shit, Shion!”

He stayed in a crouch and cupped his hands over his nose, breathing through his mouth and blinking up at Shion, who was looking at his fingers.

“I think I got blood on me. I can’t even tell where you’re bleeding from, you’ve got cuts all over your face. Stand up and let me see if I straightened it back to normal.” 

“As opposed to made it worse?” Nezumi muttered, but he stood back up and lowered his hands and let Shion tilt his face down by his chin, examine him.

Shion lifted his hand again, and Nezumi jerked back.

“I’m not going to do anything,” Shion said, so Nezumi moved forward an inch.

Shion’s fingers drifted over the bridge of his nose, soft as breath. “It’s still swollen,” he said quietly. His fingers trailed from Nezumi’s nose then, drifted to different parts of Nezumi’s face that Nezumi himself had touched, gentle as this, just that morning, cataloging his wounds.

Split bottom lip. Broken nose, a cut across the bridge of it. Black eye, his left one. A cut over his left cheek, another over his left eyebrow, and a long gash running down the side of jaw. Bruises blossomed out from the cuts like the atmospheres of planets.

Shion’s fingers slid around the cuts. They were jagged rips into Nezumi’s skin, the result of the edges of a ring. A university ring, maybe, Nezumi hadn’t gotten a good look. He didn’t know any men that wore jewelry outside of slim, harmless engagement bands, even in the theater, so it felt like shitty luck, happening to piss off the one man in Japan with a massive ring on his forefinger.

Shion’s fingers spent the longest circling the gash on Nezumi’s jaw. “It’s bleeding,” he said.

“It does that.”

“I think you need stitches.”

“I don’t.”

Shion took his fingers away. Showed Nezumi, who looked at the blood on Shion’s fingertips.

“I have magic healing powers. My telomeres are super short, remember?”

“They’re long, actually,” Shion said, but he looked less worried. “And they don’t give you magic healing powers.”

“What do you know?”

“I can do it.”

“What?”

“The stitches. If you don’t want to go to a doctor. I imagine you don’t like going to those, with all their forms and medical histories and asking for birthdates.”

“I don’t need stitches.”

“Do you know why I’m here?” Shion asked.

Nezumi blinked at the change in topic. “To bake?” he guessed.

“My mom called me an hour ago and told me to come get you and treat you. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. He’d have to yell at Karan later. “Your mom isn’t a doctor.”

“No, but I have a doctorate in biomedical engineering, which, if you’ll listen closely, you’ll notice has the word ‘medical’ in it, and what that means is when I see a deep, gaping, open wound, I’m certified to diagnose it with being in need of stitches. So come with me, we’ll take an Uber to my lab. There’s no need to make a scene.”

“I’m not making a scene. You’re making a scene.”

Shion just looked at him, then stepped away from him to the paper towels, ripped one free from the roll and wiped his fingers on it, then took his phone from his pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling an Uber.”

Nezumi felt his blood trickling down his neck and rubbed at it with the back of his hand. He looked at his hand, the smeared blood on it. His entire face throbbed and seared interchangeably. He’d taken five Advil and was thinking he should have taken six, or seven.

“Come,” Shion said, leaving the kitchen without waiting for Nezumi’s reply.

Nezumi could have easily stayed in the kitchen, but he followed Shion, who led him out the front, calling to his mom on the way out—

“I’m taking him.”

“Thanks, honey. Be good for the doctor, Nezumi.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at her and then was outside the bakery with Shion, where they waited for the Uber in silence. When it pulled up, they piled into the back. Nezumi could see his reflection in the window and thought he looked worse than he’d remembered from that morning. Maybe Shion had fucked up his nose more.

“Am I going to look like Frankenstein?” Nezumi asked, ten minutes into the drive.

“Frankenstein is the person, not the monster.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. Exactly like him. You should suggest to your manager you do that play next, you won’t need make-up or anything.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be sympathetic to victims?” Nezumi asked.

“You won’t tell me what happened, for all I know you’re not the victim.”

“I think you can make an educated guess based off the evidence that I am the victim,” Nezumi said dryly, tilting his head back against the head rest and swiping his hand along his neck when he felt another tickle of trickling blood.

“If the evidence includes your volatile and instigative personality, then I think it’s a toss-up,” Shion said back.

Nezumi closed his eyes. He felt more blood trickling down under his chin, and he was about to wipe at it when he felt Shion’s touch, the brush of his fingers on his skin, brief and gone again.

“I don’t know why I’m being mean to you,” Shion said quietly. “You are the victim.”

It wasn’t a long ride to Shion’s lab since they took an Uber instead of the train, and then Shion was leading Nezumi through the winding building to a room that may or may not have been the same room where Shion took many samples of Nezumi’s DNA.

Nezumi hoisted himself onto the examination table only for Shion to tell him to come back down.

“You’ll be too tall up there. Sit in that chair.”

It might have been the same chair where Nezumi sat and drank a juice box. He wondered if Shion would get him a juice box now. He lowered himself from the examination table and sat in the chair, and Shion washed his hands, gathered supplies onto a tray, set the tray on the examination table, pulled on white gloves, and picked up a syringe.

“What’s that?”

“To numb your face.”

Nezumi held still, and Shion tilted his chin up, his gloved fingers smooth on his skin. Shion stuck the needle into Nezumi’s cheek. It was a strange sensation, and then it was gone.

“We’ll wait for ten minutes, let that take effect,” Shion said.

“Do I want to ask you if you’ve given stitches before?” Nezumi asked.

“I haven’t,” Shion said.

“That’s information you should not volunteer.”

Shion was overturning a bottle of some kind of liquid onto a cotton square. He set the bottle back on the tray and turned back to Nezumi. “Don’t worry,” he said, tilting Nezumi’s chin up again and touching the cotton to the gash over Nezumi’s eyebrow.

Nezumi flinched, and Shion pulled the cotton away. He looked at Nezumi wordlessly until Nezumi leaned forward again, and Shion replaced the cotton. It burned, but Shion seemed entirely unconcerned.

“I have to worry. My face is my livelihood.”

“You’re not going to look like Frankenstein,” Shion said. “Or his monster,” he added, still dabbing the cotton, then putting it on the tray, soaking another square of cotton, returning to Nezumi’s face.

Nezumi watched Shion while he cleaned his face. The last bit of him Shion cleaned was his neck, probably getting the dried streaks of blood that had trickled from his face. Nezumi liked seeing the concentration Shion gave him, the focus on his features, the way his red eyes stayed in one place, then jumped to the next that needed his attention.

“You should be numb now,” Shion said, dropping the last blood-soaked cotton square on the tray. They were all varying shades between pink and red. The fingers of Shion’s white gloves were pink. “You won’t be able to talk, so I wouldn’t if I were you. I mean, you can, but your jaw is numb, so your speech will come out garbled. Like a babbling child.”

Nezumi could feel the numbness of one side of his face, like he was paralyzed. He had no intention of trying to speak.

“Do you want water before I start?” Shion asked.

Nezumi shook his head.

“Okay. Just sit still, try to relax. You’ll feel a pulling sensation, but it shouldn’t hurt. If it does, let me know.”

Nezumi didn’t have to try to relax. He felt more relaxed, as Shion stitched his face, than he had in a long time. There was no sound in the room outside of the occasional clink of Shion’s tools on the tray when he picked one up, put one down. There was no pain, just that pulling Shion had mentioned, the twinge of it, strange but not unpleasant. There was nothing on Shion’s face but concentration, and Nezumi loved to watch him, this quiet focus that Shion was giving completely to him, completely to this task at hand, this task of piecing together Nezumi’s skin.

Nezumi thought he’d happily get the shit beat out of him more often, daily if he had to, if it meant he could come back to this room, to this moment, sitting and saying nothing and watching Shion look at him, watching Shion take care of him, watching Shion put him back together. Just to be in the same room as Shion and not to be fighting was incredible. Just to have a chunk of Shion’s time, to own it completely, time when Nezumi knew Shion was thinking of nothing but him—incredible, incredible, it was nothing less than incredible. Even more incredible were that these thoughts of Nezumi were not thoughts that would hurt Shion or anger him or make him cry. They were harmless thoughts, thoughts of where to put the needle next, thoughts of how many stitches Nezumi’s gash required.

It couldn’t last forever. Shion finished the stitches, set his tools down, overturned his burning liquid on another cotton square and pressed the cool of it along Nezumi’s cut, then folded the square, pressed it again. Then he put the square on his tray with the other dirtied squares, and he peeled off his pink-fingered gloves and set them on the tray, and he looked at Nezumi, who looked back at him and didn’t feel relaxed anymore because the stitches were over. There was nothing more Shion could do for Nezumi, and soon they would have to leave this room.

Shion didn’t say anything. He lifted his tray and took it to the counter, and he put things in different places, tossed the cotton squares and gloves. Nezumi stopped paying attention because the feeling was coming back to his face, and quicker than he’d expected, it hurt badly. He inhaled quickly at his sudden pain, lifted his hand to his face and felt the ragged bumps of the stitches.

Shion turned at his inhale. He returned to Nezumi’s side and caught Nezumi’s wrist, pulled Nezumi’s hand from his face.

“Don’t touch it,” he said. “The numbing agent is wearing off. It’s no greater pain than what you were feeling before, it just feels like it because it was gone for a bit, and now it’s all coming back at once.” 

Nezumi wasn’t sure how much he believed this. The pain felt much worse than before. And it should have, as his face had just been stitched, a needle pulled through his skin over and over. Why shouldn’t he feel worse?

“I’m going to get you pain meds. Stay here and don’t touch it.”

Nezumi was alone then. He touched the stitches again. It felt like what he imagined Frankenstein’s monster’s face felt like. He wasn’t sure how long his face would take to heal. He most certainly wouldn’t be able to put make-up on it, and his German prostitute role depended on him looking fresh-faced and beautiful at the beginning, depended on his decline being slow and gradual and then all at once into death.

Shion returned and walked quickly to Nezumi’s side, pulled his hand again away from his face.

“I told you not to,” he said.

Nezumi didn’t speak. He was certain he could now. His jaw was no longer numb, and he doubted he’d sound like a babbling child at this point. But he didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to say anything. He wanted this moment to last as long as possible, and speaking felt like a danger to that, somehow. Speaking felt like a way to speed up time, so Nezumi stayed quiet.

Shion had placed two things on the examination table when he’d walked in. One was a bottle of pills that he showed to Nezumi.

“These are very strong. I don’t want to give them to you. But I will because I know you must be in a lot of pain. They’re not like Advil, Nezumi. Do you understand? You can only take one at a time. I’m trusting you not to do anything with these pills but take one every twelve hours. If you do anything else with them, I will blame myself as the person who gave you these pills. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Shion asked. He said all of this very calmly, and he looked at Nezumi calmly too, professionally, the way a doctor would look at a patient, and Nezumi liked all of this. It made it seem like Shion said these words to all of his patients, like they were nothing personal but just the usual warning.

But Shion didn’t have any other patients. And this was not a usual warning.

Nezumi held out his hand, and Shion hesitated, then gave him the bottle of pills.

Shion picked up the other item from the examination table. It was a handheld mirror, which Nezumi knew even though Shion had the mirror side turned away from him.

“You look a little like Frankenstein’s monster,” Shion said. “Do you want to see?”

Nezumi nodded. Shion turned the mirror around. Nezumi turned his head and looked at the stitches. They were the only part of him that looked like Frankenstein’s monster. The rest of him just looked like a guy who’d been beaten up.

“You can talk now, you know,” Shion said.

Nezumi kept looking at his reflection. This was not the first time he’d looked like this. It used to be frequent. He used to have gashes in his skin deeper than the one Shion had stitched, and still, he never bled out.

“What happened, Nezumi?” Shion asked quietly.

What happened was Nezumi had gone to the bar again after waking up Karan to tell her he wanted to marry her son. He’d drunk a lot and realized next to him at the bar counter were two guys who’d just gotten engaged. They were out celebrating. Nezumi waited for one to go to the bathroom, and then he turned to the other one, and he said what he had to say and smiled the way he had to so that five minutes later, they were in the alley beside the bar, and Nezumi was sucking his dick.

The guy finished. Nezumi told him he was going home, but instead, he followed the guy back to the bar, where his fiancé was almost frantic, wondering where he’d gone.

So Nezumi told him. And then he got the shit beat out of him, but his face would heal.

Their relationship would not. That was what mattered. He’d ruined the relationship of two strangers, and it had felt good. Nezumi planned on doing it again and again to get it out of his system so he wouldn’t do it to Shion.

Shion sighed and placed the mirror back on the examination table. “I have to get going. I have a class soon.”

Nezumi didn’t protest. He knew they couldn’t stay in this room forever. He followed Shion out, holding his bottle of pills, and Shion walked him to the train station.

“One every twelve hours,” Shion said, pointing at the bottle of the pills at the entrance of the station.

Nezumi nodded.

“You have to say something now, you’re starting to freak me out.”

“Thank you for the stitches,” Nezumi told him. His voice came out normal. Maybe a little quieter.

“I’ll have to take them out, so you’ll have to come back. Maybe in five days. Okay? I’ll text you.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t pick at them. Don’t touch them. Don’t put make-up on them. Wash your face carefully and don’t get scented soap in them.”

“Okay.”

“And only take the painkillers once every twelve hours.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to give them to you. I’m scared to give them to you.”

“If I was going to kill myself, it wouldn’t be with anything you gave me.”

“Nezumi, please don’t,” Shion said, insistent, as if Nezumi hadn’t spoken, or as if Nezumi had said instead— _I’m going home to take all of these pills at once._

“I promise. I won’t.”

Shion looked worried. Nezumi wished the man who’d beat him up had done a better job. Had broken his skin everywhere, so they’d still be in Shion’s lab, and Shion would still be stitching him back together. So he’d have to spend the rest of his life stitching Nezumi back together.

“Don’t be worried,” Nezumi said.

“No one scares me like you do,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi wanted to close Shion’s eyes, watching him wide with worry. He wanted to kiss Shion’s eyelids. He wanted to kiss Shion’s everything, everywhere.

“That’s just because I look like Frankenstein’s monster,” Nezumi said.

Shion didn’t smile. He still looked worried. There was nothing Nezumi could do about this, so he left Shion, waving before he turned to head down the steps to the train platform.

People stared at him as he walked through the platform. But Nezumi was used to being stared at. He was stared at when he was beautiful. He would be stared at now that he was fucked up, and then he’d be beautiful again, and he’d be stared at again like before, like always.

He was used to it. He was used to the way everyone looked at him—except Shion. He’d never be used to it, being looked at by Shion. No matter how Shion looked at him—with concentration, with worry, with fear, with anger—Nezumi could never get enough.

*

The painkillers were incredibly effective. They took all of the pain away. It was so startling Nezumi spent the first pain-free hour wary, certain the pain would swoop back on him, triple as bad as it had been before, but it didn’t.

He understood now, Shion’s worry. Nezumi had been lying in bed, unable to sleep out of fear the pain would come back, but he got up and returned to his kitchen where the bottle sat on the counter. He picked it up, opened it, poured the pills on his counter.

There were nine left. They were meant to last five days. But if one worked this well, Nezumi couldn’t help but wonder how two would work. Three? Four? All ten at once?

Nezumi picked them up one by one. Replaced them in the bottle. Left his apartment and went across the hall, just as he had the night before, except it wasn’t that late tonight, though he knew it would still be past Karan’s bedtime.

He knocked, and when Karan didn’t open the door, he kept knocking until she did.

Her eyes went first to Nezumi’s face, flickering over it before settling. “Are these nightly visits going to be a routine thing?” she asked.

Nezumi held out the bottle of pills. “Can you keep these somewhere I won’t find them and give them to me one at a time? I’m supposed to take one every twelve hours. I took the first an hour ago.”

Karan took the bottle. There was no label on it.

“Shion gave them to me. Painkillers,” Nezumi explained, unsure if an explanation was needed, thinking it was probably obvious.

“I can keep them,” Karan said.

“Okay. Thanks. Good night.”

“Good night, Nezumi.”

Nezumi returned to his apartment. He stopped at his bathroom to look at his stitches for another minute—he liked looking at them, Shion’s handiwork on his face—then returned to bed and laid in the center on his back as he had before.

He watched the ceiling. He waited to feel pain, and he fell asleep waiting.

*

In five days, Nezumi was back in Shion’s lab, in a room that might have been the same room, but Nezumi still couldn’t be sure. Shion was taking out his stitches.

“I should have taken these out two days ago, they almost healed into your skin. Do you have magic healing powers?” he asked.

“I told you.”

“I’m serious. Look at your face. It’s basically back to normal. Are you wearing make-up? I told you not to wear make-up.”

“I’m not wearing make-up.”

Shion paused in taking out the stitches and rubbed his gloved finger over Nezumi’s cheek, then inspected it. “Wow,” he breathed.

He finished taking out the stitches. Nezumi stood up, pulled the pill bottle from his pocket, and set it on the counter beside Shion, who was cleaning his various tools.

“I don’t need these anymore. These are the leftovers.”

Shion picked the bottle up off the counter. He opened it, then poured it into his palm. There were six pills left.

“You only took four?”

“It stopped being painful.”

“And you’re just going to give the rest back to me?” Shion asked.

“What else would I do with them?” Nezumi asked back. 

Shion stared at him, then looked back at the pills, counting them again, his thumb briefly touching one at a time before he poured them back into the bottle and twisted back on the cap.

“Are you free right now?” Shion asked.

“Sure,” Nezumi said. He had rehearsal in an hour, but he skipped rehearsals more often than he attended them.

“Do you want to come over? Rai won’t be home till late, he has parent-teacher conferences today.”

“Sure,” Nezumi said again, so Shion led him back out the maze of his lab, into the bright sunlight of the late afternoon, and to his apartment.

Nezumi hadn’t been here since Shion’s birthday. He looked up at the chandelier as they passed under it in Shion’s hallway, and he felt a sense of relief that it was still there, still garish and ostentatious, unchanged. He didn’t know why he thought they might have taken it down.

Shion paused after sliding his key card and opening the door a crack.

“I have essays to grade for tomorrow. So I’ll just be working. But I want you to be here anyway. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” Nezumi said.

Shion opened the door then, and it looked the same inside too, teetering stacks of books everywhere, a trap to lure Nezumi and keep him there.

“I’m going to change, I’ll bring my stuff to the living room. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you want.”

Nezumi went to the kitchen as Shion disappeared down the hallway to his room. He was rummaging through the fridge when the front door opened again, and he turned, wary, but it was Safu.

“Nezumi!” she shouted, even though he’d seen her just that morning at the bakery. She bounded over and hugged him. “You’re here!”

“Looks like it.”

Safu stepped back, glancing in the way of Shion’s room before she said, “Oh, right, Rai has parent-teacher conferences. Are you here to…?”

“I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“You certainly do.”

“Nothing’s going on, Safu, it’s just been a while since Nezumi was over,” Shion said, coming into the kitchen with his arms filled with stacks of paper.

“If you say so,” Safu said, winking at Nezumi, who laughed.

He felt, for the first time in months, like he was home again.

*

Sometime later, Nezumi was stretched out on the couch, his feet in Safu’s lap as they both read—Safu reading some autobiography of a famous dead woman, her book balancing on Nezumi’s ankles, and Nezumi reading a Haruki Murakami novel from one of Shion’s stacks _._ Shion was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, grading essays. Every couple of pages, Nezumi glanced at him, the crown of his bright hair. He wanted to run his hands through it, just once, but knew better.

Nezumi was looking at Shion’s hair again, thinking about how he knew better, when the front door opened.

“These parents are exhausting,” Rai announced as he walked in, his arms full of gift bags.

He stopped in the living room.

“Nezumi’s here,” Shion said, as if Rai wasn’t looking at Nezumi at that moment.

“Hey,” Nezumi said.

“Hi. It’s good to see you,” Rai said.

“What’s with the loot?” Safu asked.

“Parents gave me gifts. Mostly candles, a few boxes of Pocky,” Rai said, setting it all down on the coffee table before crouching down to kiss the corner of Shion’s lips. 

Nezumi looked back at his book but didn’t read anything.

“The conferences went okay? Did Osamu’s mom come?”

Rai groaned in response.

“Poor thing, relax now, you’ve had a long day,” Shion said.

Nezumi glanced up from his book to see that Rai was now lying on the floor, his head in Shion’s lap while Shion combed his fingers through Rai’s hair.

Nezumi looked back at his book again. He flipped the page even though he hadn’t finished reading the one he’d been on.

“Best and worst part of your day?” Shion asked.

“Best was when Sayaka showed her dad the poem she’d written, and he cried.”

Safu pinched Nezumi’s foot, so he looked at her, and she rolled her eyes. Nezumi half-smiled, glad for her.

“Worst was when Osamu’s mom yelled at me and Osamu’s dad for not being stricter with Osamu in front of the poor kid.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah. She’s just awful, at least she only has custody two days of the week, I don’t think her influence should damage him too much. Your turn.”

“Hm, worst was this morning, my seminar was a bust, I don’t think the students really cared at all today. I couldn’t engage them for some reason. Best is…now that you’re home.”

Nezumi shut his book, having had quite enough of this little domestic ritual that he really wished he didn’t have to know anything about.

“I should head out,” he announced.

Shion tilted his head up to look at him upside down. “Okay,” he said.

Rai sat up from Shion’s lap. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

“Yeah, stay,” Safu said, squeezing his feet until Nezumi slid them from her grip, bending his legs at the knees and pivoting on the couch to sit properly.

“I can’t,” Nezumi said, looking at Shion.

“That’s okay,” Shion said. “Another time, maybe.”

“Sure, maybe.”

“I hope you’re not leaving at my expense,” Rai said.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Nezumi said back, standing and stretching before replacing the book on its pile.

“He has plans, Rai,” Shion said.

“What plans?” Safu asked.

Nezumi glared at her, and she grinned back.

Rai stood up. “Really, though, if you can’t stay tonight, please come around for dinner next week. I’d really like that. Can you?”

Nezumi slipped his hands in his pockets. “Busy,” he said.

“All week?” Rai asked.

“Babe, let it go, he has shows in the evenings,” Shion said, standing up too.

Rai just looked at Nezumi, then nodded. “I understand,” he said.

“I’ll walk you out,” Shion said.

“Since when did you do that?” Nezumi asked, leaving the living room.

“Bye!” Safu called.

Shion followed Nezumi out the front door, through the hall. They stood in front of the elevator and waited.

“Best and worst part of your day?” Nezumi asked, unable to help himself.

“Nezumi,” Shion sighed.

Nezumi exhaled hard. “Sorry.”

The elevator came, and Shion followed Nezumi into it. Nezumi didn’t know what the point of this was, but it was fine with him.

As the elevator passed the fourth floor, Shion asked, “What was yours?”

“What?”

“Best and worst part of your day?”

They reached the lobby. Nezumi didn’t get out of the elevator, and neither did Shion. The doors closed, but the elevator didn’t move.

“Why ask questions you know the answer to?” Nezumi finally said, then reached out, pressed the door open button, and they opened. Nezumi left the elevator, and Shion didn’t, and this was the worst part of his day.

He knew Shion knew this.

*


	23. Chapter 23

It was another several weeks before Nezumi saw Shion again. The man was busy with the article he was trying to get published in August, Nezumi knew, from both Safu and the texts Shion sent Karan, apologizing for not being able to make it to the bakery for such a long period of time.

So Nezumi didn’t expect to see Shion until after August, and for this reason only, he started keeping track of time by looking at the calendar on his phone. Therefore, he knew that it was only mid-July when Shion walked into the bakery while Nezumi was manning the register.

Nezumi saw Shion immediately. There was no line, and Nezumi was bored, drawing different pastries on a roll of receipt slips when the ding of the door rang, and he lifted his head to see the shock of Shion’s white hair. The man’s head was down, as he was looking at his phone.

Shion walked halfway through the bakery before looking up from his phone, already waving and saying, “Hi, M—” but on seeing Nezumi, he fell silent, changed course from heading to the kitchen and instead came to stand in front of the counter.

Nezumi straightened up. “What can I get for you today, sir?”

“Why are you here? Since when did you work the front?”

“Your mom’s sick, and we had to fire Mio cause she’s been stealing from the register. Safu’s in the back baking since she’s never worked register before, so I get that privilege.”

“Mom’s sick? Mio’s been stealing?”

Nezumi smiled. “The second bit was a lie. She left a few weeks ago to move closer to her sister or mom or something. Karan hasn’t bothered hiring anyone new since Safu’s been here so often. And Karan’s just got a cold, she’s fine, but people don’t like buying food from bakers that are blowing their noses and sneezing.”

“Should I go check on her?”

“She’s fine, check on me. I’m the one who’s bored out of my mind. Actually, now that you’re here, you can take over the front,” Nezumi said.

“I just came to say hi since I haven’t been around in a while, but I’ve got to get going.”

Nezumi slumped back down. “How useless.”

“You got a haircut,” Shion said, touching the ends of Nezumi’s hair.

“Karan did it, there were split ends,” Nezumi said, surprised Shion even noticed. He’d only let her cut off three inches, measuring the ends that fell onto the towel she wrapped around his shoulders with a ruler to make sure.

“It looks healthier now.”

“Glad you approve. How’s your article?”

Shion had seen Nezumi’s receipt tape drawings and dragged them across the counter closer to him.

“Good. I was worried earlier this month I wouldn’t finish in time, but now I think I should be fine.”

“Of course, you’ll be fine.”

“What’s this on top of the tart?”

“Whipped cream. That’s a pie,” Nezumi said, leaning closer to see.

“We don’t put whipped cream on pies.”

“I took some creative liberties,” Nezumi said, sliding the receipt back toward himself, watching Shion’s lips curl up.

“I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” Shion said, reaching across the counter to touch the ends of Nezumi’s hair again, and Nezumi decided he’d have to get more haircuts, he’d have to make sure every time before he saw Shion, he let Karan chop another inch off his hair. It was long. He could keep that going for a while.

“That’s because it has been a long time.” Two months, but Nezumi didn’t say that because Shion didn’t know he kept track of time now, that all Nezumi did was keep track of time.

“The last time was when I took out your stitches. And look at you now. Scarless.” Shion let go of his hair to trace the tips of two fingers down Nezumi’s face, along his jaw, where the gash had been. “There’s not even a trace of it.”

Nezumi hadn’t been touched by Shion in two months. It took effort to keep his expression unchanged. “Sometimes I have my make-up girl draw it back on because I miss it so much,” he said.

Shion smiled. Nezumi loved his smile. Loved when Shion smiled because of him.

There were two customers in the bakery, both sitting at the same table by the window and talking to each other. They weren’t paying attention. If Nezumi leaned forward, kissed Shion, the customers wouldn’t notice. Who would know but Nezumi and Shion?

Shion took his fingers from Nezumi’s face. He leaned against the counter with his elbows over the glass of it. Nezumi did the same.

“Listen. I have to go. My day is booked, and I want to visit Mom at home. But I hate not seeing you for such long spans of time. I have an idea, and you’re not going to like it, but I need you to consider it anyway.”

“And what’s this terrible idea?”

Shion bit his lip. Released it. “Rai and I compromised after all our fighting and made an agreement that no matter what I have going on with work, we have dinner together two days a week. We’ve been doing that, and it’s good for us. Otherwise, I’d eat all my meals at the lab, and I’d never see him.”

“I’m very happy for you,” Nezumi said slowly.

“I want you to come to one of the dinners. Once a week, that’s it, Nezumi.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “With Rai?”

“Well, yes.”

“And why can’t I have you to myself once a week?”

Shion sighed. “He wants to get to know you, Nezumi. That’s really important to him.”

“And what about what’s important to me?” 

“What’s important to you?” Shion asked.

“Not getting to know Rai,” Nezumi said.

Shion nodded once, which was not the reaction Nezumi had expected. “I know. I do understand, I want you to know that, I understand that you don’t want to see him. I wouldn’t ask you to do this, but it’s not just Rai who wants to see you. I miss you too, and right now I barely have time to spend with him, and I’m trying to meet him halfway, so him being around is the only way I can see you too.”

“I’m perfectly fine not seeing you at all until your schedule frees up to be more accommodating,” Nezumi replied.

“Well, I’m not perfectly fine with that,” Shion said back.

“And everything is about what you want.”

“Isn’t that why you call me Your Majesty? I’m spoiled, and I get what I want, and I won’t settle for less,” Shion said, his voice hard.

Nezumi tried not to smile. He straightened back up, and Shion did as well across the counter. “You have to do this to me, Your Majesty?”

“I’ll text you the night for this week. You have an understudy for a reason, so I don’t want to hear that excuse. I have to go now, but I’ll see you later. I’ll see you soon. Right?”

Nezumi waved a hand dismissively. “We’ll see,” he said.

“Safu will be there too. It will be like a little family dinner.”

“Aren’t you late for something?” Nezumi asked.

Shion looked at him for another moment, then stepped back from the counter. “It might not be terrible.”

Nezumi raised his eyebrows, and Shion finally turned and left. Nezumi watched Shion walk away from the bakery through the glass front, then put a bell on the counter for costumers to ring if they needed him and went to the back.

Safu was scooping icing into an icing bag and looked up at him.

“I heard Shion’s voice. It was rude of him not to come back and say hello to me.”

“You live with him, you see him all the time,” Nezumi reminded.

“I don’t, actually, he’s always working, especially now that his article deadline is so close. I only see him at our family dinners.”

“He doesn’t really call them that.”

“Rai does,” Safu said.

Nezumi grimaced, and Safu laughed.

“If Rai didn’t make Shion do these dinners, I doubt I’d have seen him at all in the last month. It’s not a bad idea, even if it sounds lame.”

“How mad will he be if I don’t show up?” Nezumi asked, leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

Safu shrugged. “Rai’s been insisting Shion ask you to come for months now, but Shion never gave in. He’s told Rai a hundred times that you don’t have to be best friends with him if you don’t want to be. It gets Rai all riled up, but Shion’s been pretty insistent that it’s up to you.”

“If it’s up to me, why was Shion out there begging me to come to these stupid dinners a minute ago?” Nezumi demanded.

Safu set down the icing back. “It doesn’t take a genius to see he misses you. I don’t think he’ll be mad if you don’t show up. I think he’ll be sad. He told me once he doesn’t feel like himself without you, and especially after long periods of time without you, he feels unsettled and distracted. You guys have a weird codependent relationship I’ve stopped bothering to try to figure out. But all that means is while he doesn’t want to force you to endure a dinner watching his and Rai’s couple act, he still wants to see you, and this is the only way it can happen right now when he’s so busy.”

Nezumi pushed his bangs off his forehead. “Why’s this article so important anyway?”

“It’s all his research since he started at the university. It’s a big deal, Nezumi, and not just for Shion, but for the medical community. You should care more about his work, he cares about yours.”

“I do care about his work.”

“Then come to dinner. Then he’d get his weekly dose of Nezumi, and he won’t have to feel distracted at work pining for you.”

Nezumi looked at Safu flatly.

“I’m not joking. You think I am, but I’m not,” she told him.

Nezumi could say nothing back, as the bell dinged from the front. “Gotta get that. Can’t leave precious customers waiting,” he said, glad for the excuse to leave the kitchen, to give himself time alone with Safu’s words in his head— _It doesn’t take a genius to see he misses you. He told me once he doesn’t feel like himself without you._

Nezumi was glad to leave the kitchen, to give himself time to turn these words over and over like stones, smooth and comforting and easy to hold onto, to pocket and keep forever.

*

It was four days later, on a Tuesday evening, that Nezumi was in Safu and Shion’s apartment—and Rai’s apartment too—spreading marinara sauce on a circle of raw pizza dough with a spoon.

It had been Rai’s idea that they make their own pizzas. Nezumi made his pizza beside Safu on the counter space to the right of the sink while Rai and Shion made their pizzas on the counter space to the left. Nezumi had not been keeping track of the time, but he knew he could not have been in the apartment for more than ten minutes, and he was already itching to leave.

“What’s that you’re doing there, professor?” Rai was asking.

“I’m sectioning my cheeses. This quarter is mozzarella, this one is parmesan, this one is ricotta, this one is all three.”

“Ah, of course. Cheese sectioning. An ancient Italian technique. But what if I—”

“Wha—Excuse me! Did you just sprinkle mozzarella in my parmesan section?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Can you prove it?”

Nezumi glanced at Safu, who raised her eyebrows back at him.

“Are they going to be like this all night?” Nezumi whispered, while Rai and Shion continued. It was only a matter of time before they started a food fight. Nezumi thought he might lose his mind.

“Maybe. They can be pretty obnoxious. I was sure they’d tone it down while you’re here.”

Nezumi picked up a handful of cheese from the bowl in front of him, not caring what it was, and dropped it on his pizza. Beside him, Safu was carefully laying leaves of spinach around her pizza.

“It’s not like you and Shion were any less obnoxious,” Safu said.

Nezumi chose to ignore that. “I’m done,” he said.

“That’s the most half-assed pizza I’ve ever seen,” Safu replied.

“Good, glad you can spot half-assed work when it’s right in front of you. Can we put these things in the oven so this dinner can be over soon?” Nezumi muttered.

Shion and Rai were not listening. They were engaged in some banter involving mushrooms now, and when Nezumi glanced over Safu’s head, it was to see Shion pushing Rai’s hands away from his pizza, laughing and trying to shove Rai away with his shoulder.

“I honestly think Shion forgot you’re here,” Safu whispered, also watching them.

“After he begs me to come. How nice,” Nezumi said dryly, picking up his pan, which had Safu’s pizza on it too, even though she’d been in the middle of carefully positioning her green peppers.

“I’m not done,” Safu protested, while Nezumi carried their pizzas to the oven.

Nezumi ignored her, opening the oven and sliding the pan in, glad at least the oven was already preheated.

“Look, Nezumi and Safu are done, we’re falling behind, stop distracting me,” Shion said, succeeding in pushing Rai away from his pizza. He glanced quickly at Nezumi over his shoulder, his cheeks darkening, before turning back to his pizza.

Nezumi left the kitchen, going to the bathroom and shutting the door and standing against it for a moment before stepping in front of the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror, took in the blankness of his expression, then peed, washed his hands, and left the bathroom again.

Shion was putting the pan of his and Rai’s pizzas into the oven when Nezumi returned to the kitchen, and Rai was asking how long to set the timer. Safu was pouring wine in glasses at the counter, so Nezumi went to her.

She’d poured four glasses. Nezumi picked one up, emptied it in the sink, and filled it with water instead.

“Did you just dump that wine in the sink?” Safu asked.

“Good eye, you could be a detective.”

“You couldn’t just redistribute it into the other glasses? Do you always have to be so dramatic?”

“Looks like it,” Nezumi said, downing his water and wishing it was wine, then filling his glass at the faucet again.

“Can I talk to you?”

It was Shion, who was suddenly standing beside Nezumi, his hand on Nezumi’s lower back, though he moved it when Nezumi lowered his wine glass and looked at him.

“This is water,” Nezumi said, holding out his glass.

“I know. That’s not why. In my room?”

Shion didn’t wait for Nezumi to reply, but left Nezumi’s side, and then the kitchen, disappearing down the hallway. Nezumi glanced at Rai, who was looking rather intently at his phone, before following Shion.

In Shion’s room, Shion closed the door after Nezumi walked in.

“Have I done something, Your Majesty? Am I not keeping up enough small talk with Rai? To be fair, you’ve been keeping him quite preoccupied, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make nice with the guy when you’re not even giving me a window to get a word in.”

Shion went to his desk, sat on his chair. “I know. That’s why I wanted to talk. I’m sorry. I keep forgetting…” Shion trailed off, looked at Nezumi with a crease between his eyebrows.

Nezumi stayed by the door. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Forgetting I’m here and prone to jealous outbursts?”

“I’m not trying to be an asshole. It’s just—It’s just happening—This is how it is with Rai and I, it’s not like we’re toning it up because you’re around, I just want you to do know that.”

“You’re certainly not toning it down.”

“I meant to! That was my intention—”

“I really don’t give a shit if you guys joke about cheese. It’s a bit nauseating, but I can handle it.”

“You don’t have to hide what you’re feeling from me, we’ve talked about this,” Shion said.

“Oh, so you’d rather I told the truth?” Nezumi asked, uncrossing his arms and taking a step towards Shion. “You’d rather I told you outright how much I can’t stand you for making me come to this and then flaunting your stupid sappy disgusting puppy love in my face? You want me to tell you how I have never disliked you, just flat out disliked you, Shion, until now, for making me come here to watch you be happy with your boyfriend? Is that what you want?”

Shion clutched the seat of his chair. He looked distraught, and Nezumi didn’t care. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Right. You don’t want me to be honest. You want me to put on my indifferent face, you want me to act like I don’t give a shit about you, that’s what you want. Except, no, that’s not right, because then I’m not in love with you, and you can’t have that. So I have to be a little jealous, the right amount of jealous, that sweet spot where you know I’m still pining, but it’s not so in your face that you have to feel guilty about it. Right? That’s what I have to do? Great, I’m glad we’re on the same page, I wasn’t sure what my cue was, but now I think I’ve got it, I’ll make sure to put on the right sort of act for you and Rai tonight—”

“Stop it. Nezumi, just stop.”

Nezumi took another step closer to him. “I’m not the one who needs to stop. I was behaving, I was doing my part, putting up my act, making stupid pizzas and being the good happy supportive whatever the fuck I am to you so Rai wouldn’t feel guilty anymore, and neither would you, and we could all pretend we could be a happy family. You’re the one who took me in here and wanted to talk about it and wanted me to be honest. You asked.”

Shion covered his face in his hands.

“Don’t fucking cry, Shion, or you’ll really piss me off,” Nezumi warned.

“I’m not crying,” Shion mumbled into his hands.

Nezumi exhaled hard and pushed his bangs off his forehead. He stared at Shion’s ceiling for a moment, then looked back at Shion, who still had his hands over his face. “Look. Let’s just go back out there, have a nice dinner. I’ll keep up my act of friendly indifference, and you can do whatever the fuck you want. Hold hands with Rai during dinner, feed each other bites of pizza, chew his food for him and deposit it in his mouth like a goddamn mother bird for all I care. And then I’ll go home, and you don’t invite me to another dinner like this. Can we do that? Are we both on board?”

Shion dropped his hands. “Do you really dislike me right now?” he asked, his voice small.

“Yeah, you’re being a fucking nightmare.”

“I’ll tone it down, the couple stuff, I will. It just happens,” Shion insisted.

“Do what you want. Can I go now?” Nezumi asked, pointing to the door.

“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to not hurt you and to be with someone else.”

“You can’t. So stop trying.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“What’s not fair? That you can’t have both of us? Jesus, Shion, you’re so fucking obnoxious sometimes,” Nezumi said, and he didn’t want to hear Shion’s reply, he didn’t really want to hear another word from him, so he left Shion’s room before Shion could say anything else.

In the kitchen, Safu and Rai were both sitting on opposite sides of the couch in the living room, wine glasses in their hands, talking quietly. They both fell silent and looked at Nezumi when he walked in.

“Where’s Shion?” Rai asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe he got lost somewhere, it is a big apartment,” Nezumi replied.

Rai stared.

“He’s joking, don’t listen to him,” Safu said.

Nezumi went to the kitchen for his wine glass of water. The wine bottle was right on the counter, and he contemplated chugging it, but then Shion was walking into the kitchen, so Nezumi grabbed his water and went back to the living room, sitting beside Safu on the couch and resting his head on her shoulder.

He closed his eyes, felt Safu’s fingers tuck his bangs behind his ear.

Nezumi felt the couch sink on his other side, knew that Shion had sat between him and Rai.

“It’s fine,” Shion said quietly, presumably to Rai. They were probably communicating just by looking at each other. They seemed like that kind of couple.

“What happens next?” Nezumi asked. “Do we play Monopoly? Charades?”

“I like charades,” Rai said.

“He was joking, Rai,” Shion said, even more quietly than before.

Nezumi opened his eyes. “No, I wasn’t,” he said, even though of course he had been. “Let’s play. I love charades.”

“Nezumi. You’ve never played charades.”

“Do you know how many years I was alive before I had the great honor of meeting you? Do you really think I didn’t play charades once?” Nezumi asked Shion, who just blinked back at him.

“I’ll get paper!” Safu announced, jumping off the couch.

Nezumi slid into the corner of the couch that she’d vacated to put more space between himself and Shion. He set his wine glass of water on the end table and picked up Safu’s wine glass, taking a sip of it, and then Safu was back, and Nezumi put it down.

She had a popcorn bowl and a notebook—the same one on which Nezumi had written a birthday note to Shion some time back, he couldn’t remember when—and set the popcorn bowl on the coffee table before she started ripping the pages of the notebook into smaller squares. She then passed around the squares and the handful of pens she’d also brought over.

“We can write anything? Or is there some kind of theme, like movies?” Rai asked.

“Anything,” Safu said.

“Literature titles,” Nezumi said.

“Rai doesn’t read classic literature,” Shion said.

“I’m sure I could guess Dr. Seuss titles,” Nezumi said back. “Or whatever they’re reading in kindergarten these days.”

“Let’s just stick with anything,” Shion replied, watching Nezumi warily.

Nezumi smiled back to remind Shion that he was being a good sport no matter what Shion did to him.

He looked down at his squares of paper—Safu had given him four. He thought for a moment, then wrote on his squares, respectively, _Rai, Nezumi, Hiroki, Shion._

“How did you think of yours so quickly?” Safu demanded, as Nezumi folded his squares and stretched to place them in the popcorn bowl.

“They’re my go-to for all the many times I’ve played charades.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Safu replied.

When everyone’s squares were folded and in the popcorn bowl, there was the matter of who would go first.

“Oldest goes first,” Safu announced.

Rai stood up.

“Oldest,” Safu said again, looking at Rai pointedly, who looked blankly at her until she pointed to Nezumi.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I forgot,” Rai said, rubbing the back of his neck and abruptly sitting back down.

“Move the coffee table out of the way so there’s room for more complicated ones,” Safu told Nezumi once he’d stood up in Rai’s place, so he did that, then took a square from the popcorn bowl.

He unfolded it and recognized Safu’s handwriting immediately. _Puppy._

“Seriously?” he asked, looking at her.

“You can’t tell me if it’s mine,” she said back.

Nezumi dropped the square on the floor, contemplated his options, then dropped to the floor as well, to his knees and then all fours. Safu giggled, but Nezumi looked only at Shion, who was watching him even more warily than before.

Nezumi let his jaw hang open, then stuck out his tongue and started to pant, which made Safu laugh louder. Nezumi tilted his head. Growled and then barked and then crawled over to Shion, who drew his legs up onto the couch as if Nezumi was an actual dog, but a diseased one, perhaps with rabies.

“Dog,” Shion said.

Nezumi smiled at him and shook his head, lifting his hands to the couch on either side of Shion’s drawn up feet and leaning closer to Shion to sniff his neck. Shion squirmed away from him, but not before Nezumi licked his neck.

“Nezumi!” Shion shouted, pushing him away.

“Close to a dog. You should know, we’ve played this game before,” Nezumi told him, leaning back from him but leaving his hands where he’d lifted them to Shion’s legs.

Shion stared, his face pale and his hand on his neck where Nezumi had licked it.

“You can’t talk!” Safu shouted, hitting Nezumi’s shoulder with a pillow.

“Puppy,” Rai finally said.

Nezumi glanced at him and smiled. “So you’ve played with Shion too? Did he give you the tail? I hope you disinfected that,” Nezumi said, looking back at Shion, who pushed him again, this time harder, a lot harder, so that Nezumi fell back onto the floor.

“You’re unbelievable,” Shion hissed.

“What tail?” Safu asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of puppy play,” Nezumi told her, standing up off the floor.

“What is it?” Safu asked, as Nezumi sat back on the couch beside her.

“We’re not talking about that,” Shion said shortly. “Rai, go, you guessed, so it’s your turn. Let’s just finish this. And can we make a rule? No more licking. I didn’t think that needed to be said, but I guess for some of us, that wasn’t obvious.”

“Everyone was always pro-licking every time I’ve played this game before,” Nezumi said, earning himself a glare.

Rai stood up. He grabbed a piece of paper from the bowl while Safu reached over Nezumi to grab her phone from the coffee table.

“The pizza’s not done yet, I have the timer on my phone,” Shion told her.

“I’m not looking at the timer,” Safu replied.

“Ready?” Rai asked.

“Yes, go,” Shion said.

Nezumi looked over Safu’s shoulder and saw her Googling, “puppy play.” He laughed and looked at Rai, who was still looking down at his square. He folded it, then placed it on the edge of the coffee table and started jogging in place.

“Triathlon,” Shion guessed.

Rai stopped jogging. “How did you know?”

“I put that in.”

“You’re not supposed to guess the ones you put in,” Safu piped up, still looking at her phone.

“Is that a rule?” Shion asked, standing up while Rai sat down.

“You really put in triathlon?” Nezumi asked.

“Shut up,” Shion snapped at him, more roughly than Nezumi felt was necessary.

While Shion reached into the bowl, Safu sat up abruptly, holding her phone to Nezumi. “Do you really shove the tail up your ass?” she nearly shouted.

“You should try it, I’m sure Shion will let you borrow his. It’s _ours_ , actually, but I let him keep it in the divorce,” Nezumi replied.

“Wow,” Safu whispered.

“Are you done now?” Shion asked flatly, his hands on his hips.

“Blame her,” Nezumi said, pointing at her. “She wrote puppy play on a card.”

“I wrote puppy!” Safu protested.

“I’m sorry about this,” Shion said to Rai.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I didn’t realize I had Nezumi to be grateful to for letting you keep the tail. That was kind of you,” Rai said, smiling at Nezumi, who felt his jaw clench without his permission.

“Happy to help,” he said, leaning back into the couch and turning to Shion. “Are you going to go or not?” he snapped.

Shion was looking between Rai and Nezumi, then unfolded his square and glanced at it. “Absolutely not,” he said, crumpling it and throwing it at Nezumi.

It fell in Nezumi’s lap. He picked it up but didn’t look at it. “You have to do it. That’s the rule.”

“Make me then,” Shion said shortly, reaching into the bowl again.

Nezumi opened the square. _Hiroki._ He laughed and placed it on the coffee table.

Safu reached over Nezumi’s lap again to pick it up and read it herself. “Oh, that would have been interesting,” she said.

“What is wrong with you?” Shion shouted, cutting Safu off and crumpling the second square he’d taken. He threw it at Nezumi again.

“What do they say?” Rai asked.

This one bounced off Nezumi’s knee and fell on the floor. Safu picked it up before Nezumi could and read it.

“Rai,” she said.

“Yeah?” Rai asked.

“No, it’s your name on the paper.”

“Ah.”

Shion sighed loudly, looking at his third square. “Fine, you want to play like this?” he said, again looking at Nezumi.

“You’re not allowed to talk,” Nezumi reminded politely.

Shion crumpled the paper, threw it on the coffee table, then walked over to Rai and straddled his lap.

“What—?” Rai asked, as Shion started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Is this part of the game or have you been possessed?” Safu asked.

Shion started kissing Rai, who pushed Shion back by his shoulders.

“Shion, what are you doing?”

“You’re a stranger. You don’t know my name, and I don’t know yours, and we’re both plastered,” Shion said back before kissing him again, then shoving his hand down the front of Rai’s jeans. “Let’s fuck,” he said.

Safu looked back at Nezumi, who couldn’t look away from Shion and Rai.

“You wrote this one?” she asked him quietly.

“How should I know?” Nezumi asked back, watching Rai extract Shion’s hand from his jeans and try to push Shion off him again, watching Shion grab Rai’s wrists and pin them against the couch and continue to kiss him.

“Nezumi,” Safu said, turning back to Shion and Rai beside her and hitting Shion on the shoulder when he didn’t stop. “I said, Nezumi! That’s my guess!”

Shion finally unlatched from Rai and hopped off of him. He wiped the back of his hand over his lips.

“Was it that obvious?” Shion asked, breathing hard.

Rai stood up abruptly and left the living room, and Shion turned to watch him.

“Rai,” he called, as Rai disappeared down the hallway. “Shit.”

“You should go comfort him,” Nezumi said.

Shion didn’t look back at Nezumi. He went after Rai, and then it was just Safu and Nezumi alone on the couch.

“I always figured charades was a boring game,” Safu said after a moment. “How silly of me.”

Nezumi leaned his head back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling, pushing his bangs off his face and tightening his fingers around the strands until they pulled at his scalp.

“You asked for it,” Safu said softly.

“Shut up,” Nezumi said back.

“Okay.”

Rai and Shion’s voices were clear from Shion’s room. Nezumi guessed Shion had forgotten to close the door the way he had when he and Nezumi had talked.

“Rai, I’m sorry—He licked my neck!”

“I get that he’s trying to make you want him, or to rile you up, or whatever. I expect that from him. I don’t give a shit what he does, really, Shion, I don’t. But you? You trying to make him jealous, and using me to do it? I can’t really be cool with that, surely you understand.”

“Don’t—Don’t pack, come on, don’t do that, what are you packing for? I wasn’t trying to make him jealous, really, I wasn’t, Rai, I’m sorry. I was trying to piss him off, which isn’t better, I know that, I know that was stupid, he just gets under my skin—”

“That’s not helping, Shion.” 

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, babe, I’m trying. I get that you want us all to be friends, but that’s not easy for him, and it’s not easy for me, and I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I can’t help that. I’m sorry. Please stop packing. Please don’t leave me.”

“What? I’m not going to leave you, Shion. I’m never going to leave you, certainly not over charades. I was just going to go to a friend’s for the night.”

“I don’t want you to go for the night. I don’t want you to spend any night anywhere else but here. I’m sorry. I am. Really. I won’t kiss you like that again if don’t want me to.”

Rai laughed. “Not so fast, don’t go making promises like that. But don’t do it for Nezumi. To make him jealous, mad, anything. Don’t kiss me because of him.” 

“I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”

“Maybe you should leave,” Safu suggested, elbowing Nezumi gently.

“Why would I do that?” Nezumi asked the ceiling.

“For your own sake.”

“I’m having tons of fun,” Nezumi replied, then jumped when a timer went off.

It came from Shion’s phone, which sat on the coffee table. Nezumi sat up and reached for it, turning it off just as Shion and Rai came back into the living room.

“Pizza’s done,” Nezumi said, holding up Shion’s phone.

“You’re still here?” Shion asked, while Rai went into the kitchen.

“Was I supposed to leave before eating the pizza I slaved over?” Nezumi asked.

Shion just looked at him.

“Isn’t it about time we all played nice?” Safu asked, standing up and holding a hand out for Nezumi, who took it. She pulled him up, then released him and stood close to Shion. “You’re at fault too,” she whispered to him, but Nezumi still heard her.

Shion crossed his arms, but when he looked at Nezumi again, his expression had softened.

“I licked you. You made out with your boyfriend and regularly let him use my tail. Are we even?” Nezumi asked him.

“I wouldn’t say regularly, and if you want the tail back, just say so.”

“I don’t want anything that’s been in Rai’s ass.”

“Well, I know that’s not true,” Shion said, his lips twitching, and Nezumi wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit the man or kiss him more.

Shion didn’t give him a chance to do either. He headed to the kitchen, so Nezumi followed. They cut their pizzas, loaded them on plates, and took them back to the living room because there were only three stools at the counter, and Safu had never used her dining room at the back of the apartment and never intended to.

Nezumi nibbled the edges of a slice while Rai and Safu argued about some movie they’d watched the night before. Shion and Rai had moved the coffee table back to the center of the living room, and they all sat on the floor around it. Nezumi and Safu sat on one side, their backs against the couch, while Shion and Rai sat on the other, Shion leaning against Rai and watching Rai and Safu talk without joining in. Nezumi guessed he hadn’t seen the movie. He’d probably been in the lab.

Shion glanced at Nezumi once, as Rai and Safu’s argument got heated. Nezumi had no idea what movie they were talking about, but there was some ethical dilemma in it that involved cloning. Safu was pro-clone, and Rai was thoroughly against it.

Nezumi reached for his wine glass of water, and Shion poked Nezumi’s knuckles with his crust.

Nezumi glanced at him.

“How’s your pizza?” Shion asked.

“Best I ever had,” Nezumi said back. “Making it from scratch really allows you to appreciate the flavors so much more.”

Shion smiled wanly.

After they finished eating, they took their plates to the kitchen. Nezumi offered to help clean, but Rai insisted that wouldn’t be allowed. So Nezumi sat on a stool and watched Rai and Shion wash the dishes beside each other. Safu sat beside Nezumi and talked to him about something, he didn’t know, he wasn’t listening.

The moment the dishes were finished, Nezumi stood up.

“I’ve got to go. Thanks for this, really, it was great,” he said, looking at Rai because this was what Rai had wanted.

Rai nodded at him. “Thank you for coming, Nezumi.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Shion said, just as he had last time, and Nezumi didn’t protest this time because he didn’t care one way or the other, he just wanted to leave.

Again, they stood in front of the elevator, waiting. Nezumi tucked his hands in his pockets.

“You don’t have to do that again. I’m sorry I made you,” Shion said.

“It’s fine. It could have worked out. I’m just not mature enough for civilized dinners,” Nezumi replied, as the elevator doors opened.

Shion followed him in. It was empty, and they both leaned against opposite sides of the elevator, looking at each other.

“What if we got a drink somewhere now?” Shion asked.

“I imagine Rai would not be happy that you’re spending the rare night you’ve taken off from working on your article with me instead of him.” 

Shion nodded. “That’s a good point,” he said softly. “And we’re supposed to have sex tonight.”

Nezumi raised his eyebrows.

Shion frowned. “I don’t know why I said it like that. It’s just—We have to schedule it now, only because I’ve been so busy lately, with the article deadline, you know, but normally, our sex life is really good.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

“It’s not like that. We have a great sex life, Nezumi.”

“Are you done?” Nezumi asked.

Shion dragged his hand over his face. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. They were at the lobby.

“You unsettle me. You always have.”

Nezumi was halfway out the elevator. He pressed his hand to one side of the doorway, and the elevator door pushed against his palm, then sensed it and retracted again.

“What do I do about that?” Shion asked him. “I always thought of it as a good thing, being unsettled by you. But now, now it feels like a risk I’m taking.”

Nezumi examined Shion. The elevator door pressed against his palm again, then retreated again.

“Since the moment I met you, you’ve been a risk I keep taking,” Nezumi finally said. He took his hand from the door, and it stayed open for another moment, then closed again, this time unimpeded.

Nezumi watched Shion until the doors closed completely.

*

When Shion submitted his article on the first of August, Rai threw another party for him. He texted Nezumi to invite him, and Nezumi ignored the text. He didn’t go to the party.

And then a month later, Rai texted again—Shion’s twenty-seventh birthday. This time, they were just going out to dinner, him and Safu and Shion and hopefully Nezumi. Nezumi ignored that text too.

In between these texts, Shion came to the bakery more often, now that he had more free time. Nezumi told Shion he couldn’t make his various parties, and Shion nodded both times, didn’t protest.

They were both learning from their mistakes. It was about time.

The last party Rai invited Nezumi to was at the end of the year, two weeks into December. A _house cooling_ _party_ , he called it. Nezumi had to Google what that meant, and what it meant was a party someone threw when they moved out of their house. In this case, apartment. Which meant Shion and Rai were moving into a new place, one that would be just theirs.

The day after Nezumi received this text, Shion came into the bakery. Safu was at work, so it was just Nezumi in the kitchen, making plain chocolate chip cookies.

“No special ingredient?” Shion asked, after he washed his hands and tied on his apron and came to Nezumi’s side to investigate his mixing bowl.

“You didn’t tell me you’re moving out of Safu’s,” Nezumi replied, still mixing.

He could tell Shion was looking at him but didn’t look up from the bowl.

“We found a new place close by. A little apartment. Our lease starts in the new year. Safu told you?”

“Rai invited me to your house cooling party. He certainly likes parties.”

“I was going to tell you today.”

“Were you?” Nezumi asked him, looking up from the cookie dough.

Shion bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

“I knew this was going to happen. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is for me,” Shion said quietly. 

“Right, I didn’t mean to belittle the event. I meant it’s not a big deal to me. Did you think I’d be mad? Did you think I’d cry? Beg you not to? Murder your future landlord and frame Rai?”

Shion said nothing.

“I’m aware you two have been dating for some time now. Logical next steps and all,” Nezumi said, reaching for the cookie pan in the center of the counter and spraying it down with cooking spray.

“Two years,” Shion said.

Nezumi had finished spraying the pan and was scooping a mound of cookie dough up with a spoon. “What?”

“We’ve been dating two years. And three months.”

“Great,” Nezumi said. He knew these numbers already. He hated keeping count of any span of time, but he kept count of this.

Shion got a spoon and stuck it in the cookie dough. Nezumi slid the pan so it was between them, and Shion could reach it more easily to drop mounds of dough in rows beside Nezumi’s own.

“It’s odd,” Shion said, pushing a mound of dough free from the spoon and onto the pan with his thumb. “Even though it’s been so long, sometimes he feels new to me, like we’ve just started dating. Like I barely know him. But maybe that’s how everyone feels that’s not you. I’ll never know anyone the way I know you.”

“That’s good,” Nezumi offered. “Keep some mystery and surprise in the relationship. We’d have grown tired of each other.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Is that what you want to hear?” Nezumi asked back.

Shion nudged another one of his mounds of cookie dough closer to Nezumi’s, then away again. “Maybe,” he said.

“Let’s not talk about Rai anymore,” Nezumi suggested.

So Shion started talking about the new classes he was planning on teaching in the coming semester. He talked about Christmas, and the debate he and Safu were having over whether to get a fake tree or a real one. He talked about how the acceptance of his article in that esteemed publication had led his department head at the University of Tokyo to give him a raise. He talked about whether they should add sprinkles to the chocolate chip cookies, and he talked about the snow storm that was threatening, and he talked about a new sweater he’d gotten that had given him a rash on his hip but the store wouldn’t let him return it because he’d thrown out the tags and receipt.

Nezumi listened to all of this. He replied and joked and congratulated and grabbed Shion, pulled up his shirt while Shion squirmed and laughed and pushed him, so Nezumi could look at the rash for himself.

But even though they talked about everything, and they argued, and they laughed, and it should have been how it always was between them, it wasn’t. Because Shion was moving into a new apartment with someone else, and starting his life with someone else, and no matter what they talked about, it was this that Nezumi thought about.

*


	24. Chapter 24

After Rai and Shion moved into their apartment, Nezumi started returning to Safu’s apartment. Sometimes he slept in Shion’s old room, on Shion’s old bed, like when he and Safu drank together late into the night, or when they simply stayed up reading or working—Safu on whatever it was she did that Nezumi could never remember, and Nezumi working through his scripts. Nezumi didn’t see the point in going back home when there was a bed here for him, and Safu never minded.

As they made breakfast together a morning after Nezumi slept in Shion’s old room some day in late January, Safu elbowed Nezumi. She was buttering a slice of toast beside him while he spread jam on his own.

“Hm?” Nezumi asked. Usually Safu didn’t talk to him much in the mornings, knowing he preferred not to speak right after waking. 

“Thanks for staying over some nights. I forgot how to live alone, I think.”

Nezumi glanced at her, but she was still looking at her toast. She spread the butter evenly in a meticulous way, making sure the edges and corners got their fair share.

“I like being here,” he told her. Shion’s room no longer looked like Shion’s room. He’d taken his books, and the room was barren now even though the bed and desk remained.

Safu nodded. They resumed the silence of their morning, eating their toast on stools at the counter, Nezumi thumbing through a script for his audition that afternoon and Safu checking emails on her laptop.

Safu stood up first, taking hers and Nezumi’s plates to the sink but leaving them for Nezumi to wash—she had to be at work earlier, and Nezumi didn’t mind washing dishes. She gathered her stuff for work, then paused by the counter, and Nezumi glanced up from his script.

“Here.” She slid a key card across the counter to him. Nezumi wondered if it was the same one he’d had when he lived here with Shion for a year. Rai had probably used it after him. And now it was his again.

“I’m not moving in.”

“You don’t have to. But this place is your place too. I’m sorry it couldn’t be when Rai was here. But I consider it yours as much as I consider it mine. And Shion still has his key because I consider it his too.”

Nezumi picked up the card. “Rai has one?”

“No.”

Nezumi slipped the card into the pages of his script book. “Thanks.”

Safu lingered still.

“What?” Nezumi asked.

“You have to visit Shion’s place sometime,” Safu said.

Shion had asked Nezumi several times when he thought he could come over. He’d texted Nezumi times that Rai wouldn’t be there. _I just want you to see it, it’s important that you know where I live,_ he’d said, a million times. 

“It’s not Shion’s place. It’s Shion and Rai’s place,” Nezumi said.

“So you’re never going to see it?”

“Why do I have to? I see Shion at the bakery all the time. I’m sure I’ll see him here all the time.”

“He wants you to be a part of every facet of his life.” 

“He can’t always get what he wants. That’s an unreasonable request.”

“It’s his home, Nezumi.”

“Aren’t you late for work?” Nezumi asked. Shion had already talked to him about this. He’d already said, _It won’t feel like my home until you’ve stepped foot in it. Can’t you understand that?_

But Nezumi couldn’t understand that. What did it matter if Nezumi visited Shion’s new apartment? How would that make a difference when Nezumi wasn’t living there himself? Why did Shion need this? What sense did any of it make?

Safu sighed. “Okay. He told me to talk to you, so I did my duty. I’ll go to work now.”

“Have a good day,” Nezumi told her, turning back to his script. He didn’t read it. He waited for Safu to leave, and then he stood up and went to wash the dishes.

He didn’t want Shion’s new apartment with Rai to feel like home. He didn’t want to step foot in it, if that was what it would take for Shion to feel comfortable in it.

*

Nezumi was wasted and making his way home with a man who was half holding him up.

Nezumi pointed at his apartment building when it was in view to direct this man. “That one,” he slurred.

“We’re almost there then. All right, hold on, this should make things easier…” The stranger released Nezumi, who almost fell in the absence of him, but then he was being lifted off the ground.

“What the fuck?” he demanded.

“It’s easier to carry you. You’re light anyway, and I’m a firefighter, remember? I’ve been professionally trained in carrying incapacitated people.” 

“I’m not—I’m not incapaci—cipita—” Nezumi gave up and wrapped his arms around the guy’s neck, terrified he’d be dropped and pissed that he was being carried.

The stranger just chuckled. He was annoying, and Nezumi didn’t usually care for hero types, but he was strong and tall and there was a good bulge in his jeans that Nezumi had placed his hand on in the bar to confirm. He looked like he knew how to fuck rough, so Nezumi figured he could deal with being carried if it led to him being properly pounded a few minutes.

“You’re cute,” the stranger said.

“Fuck you,” Nezumi muttered. 

The stranger laughed again. Nezumi could feel this laugh, the way the firefighter’s chest moved against Nezumi’s body. One of the firefighter’s arms was around Nezumi’s back, the other beneath his knees.

“Nezumi?”

Nezumi had not realized his eyes were closed. He opened them, and there in front of his apartment building was Rai.

“You didn’t say you had a boyfriend,” the stranger said.

“I don’t,” Nezumi said.

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Rai said. “My name’s Rai. Just a friend.”

“Right,” the stranger said. “Well, hey, I’m Daiji.”

“Daiji, nice to meet you.”

“Are you going to stand out here all—all night, or are you gonna fuck me?” Nezumi demanded, shifting and wanting the stranger to put him down.

“Stop squirming,” the stranger said, laughing again. “So impatient. Don’t worry, I’m just being polite. Listen, you mind if we go in? Your friend is clearly not good at waiting.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, of course,” Rai said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Can you get the door for us?” the stranger asked.

Rai opened the door.

“Shion’s here?” Nezumi asked him, as the stranger carried him past Rai inside the building.

“No. Just me,” Rai said, looking at Nezumi for a long moment before glancing up at the stranger holding him. “Take care of him.”

“Sure, sure,” the stranger said, and then Rai closed the door, and the stranger carried Nezumi to the elevators, and then into the one that opened, and then out onto Nezumi’s floor, where he shifted Nezumi in his arms so he could stick a hand in Nezumi’s pocket for his keys without dropping him.

“You can put me down,” Nezumi said.

“Was that guy really just a friend?” the stranger asked, not putting Nezumi down as he unlocked Nezumi’s door.

“What’s it matter?” Nezumi asked back.

The stranger laughed again. “Guess it doesn’t. We could have asked for a threesome, he was hot. Ah well, too late for that. Come on, let’s get you fucked, I can see you’re getting cranky.”

“Asshole,” Nezumi muttered, as the stranger kicked closed his front door behind them and Nezumi unwound an arm from his neck to point in the way of the bedroom.

In his bedroom, the firefighter threw Nezumi onto his mattress, and once released, Nezumi immediately started undressing. The firefighter crawled over him, started kissing him, and Nezumi pushed his face away.

“Just fuck me, don’t waste time,” Nezumi snapped.

The firefighter laughed again. He laughed too easily. Nezumi hated this, but it was the laugh that had made him look up from his drink and notice the guy in the first place.

It sounded just like Shion’s laugh, and for a second, Nezumi had thought it was Shion in the bar with him. Now, Nezumi closed his eyes as the stranger pushed Nezumi onto his stomach and asked Nezumi if he kept his lube in the side table. Nezumi nodded and waited for the man to laugh again, wondering if he could trick himself into forgetting it was a stranger that touched him, a stranger that slid lubed fingers into him, a stranger that fucked him—hard and rough and unforgiving, just like Nezumi had hoped.

*

In the morning, after Nezumi got rid of the firefighter—who put up a fuss, complaining that it was only five in the morning—he headed to the bakery.

Karan had beat him there and had already started prep work, so Nezumi quickly washed his hands, pulled on his apron, and set to cutting peaches beside her.

“Rai came by the apartment last night looking for you,” Karan told him. “He wouldn’t leave a message when I offered to give you one.”

“Mmm, I saw him,” Nezumi confirmed.

“Oh?”

Nezumi glanced at her. “I don’t know what he wanted. He didn’t say.”

“He came all the way here, waited for you, and then didn’t tell you anything?”

“You’ll have to ask him his reasoning, how should I know?” Nezumi asked back.

“And you’re not curious?”

“No. And I don’t know why you are.”

“I just didn’t know you and Rai were such good friends.”

Nezumi didn’t bother responding to this, even when Karan elbowed him in the side and grinned at him.

He was distracted by her grin for a moment and stared. It was the same as Shion’s. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed this before. Or maybe he had. He must have.

“What?” Karan asked, lifting her hand to shield her lips.

“Nothing. Tired,” Nezumi said, returning to his peaches.

“You don’t have to come in so early when you have your late nights. I imagine your guests don’t enjoy being kicked out at such early times.”

Nezumi glanced at her.

“Thin walls,” she said, shrugging. “He sounded cute. Was he?”

“Mm hmm. A firefighter.”

“Oh, I bet that was fun,” Karan said, almost wistfully, and Nezumi raised his eyebrows.

“Why don’t you go on dates?”

Karan laughed. “I’m ancient, honey.”

“You think people your age aren’t having sex?” Nezumi asked.

“Sex? I thought we were talking about dates.”

“We were definitely talking about sex,” Nezumi replied, elbowing Karan now, who smiled and shook her head.

“It’s been a long time, Nezumi.”

“I don’t remember you ever dating, even when you first moved in,” Nezumi said, thinking back.

“I fell in love with the bakery. I didn’t have time to date, and really, dating didn’t cross my mind. And then I got used to not dating. I like being on my own, being in charge of my own time. I’m very happy, Nezumi, you don’t have to worry about that. I don’t feel lonely. The only period of my life I felt lonely was when you moved in with Shion, and I rarely saw the two of you.”

“That was your doing.” 

“Well,” Karan said, and then nothing else.

“But you don’t want sex?”

Karan smiled lightly. “There are toys that do more for me than men ever could, you know.”

“Vibrators are not warm bodies.”

“I have blankets.”

Nezumi laughed. “Okay, okay.”

“Are you trying to call me pathetic?”

“I’m not!”

“A spinster?”

“You’re not a spinster!” Nezumi said, laughing more when Karan poked his side.

“I didn’t expect you to have such archaic notions of women’s dependence on men, but what was I thinking, you are from the previous century.”

“You win, I’ll stop asking you about your sex life!” Nezumi protested.

Karan cupped her hand under his jaw and turned his face toward her. “It’s good to see you laugh. You have a great laugh, do you know that? I haven’t heard it lately.”

Nezumi let her look at him for a moment, then leaned to the side to free his chin from her grasp. “Karan,” he said, a warning, and she dropped her hand.

They went back to cutting peaches. Karan was looking into the bowl of slices to determine how many pies she could make out of what they’d done already when Nezumi asked her, “Do you miss him?

Karan looked up from the bowl. “Shion?”

“His father.”

“Shion’s father?”

Nezumi nodded.

Karan eyebrows pinched. “He wasn’t a good person.”

“I’m not a good person,” Nezumi said back, then sighed, pushed his bangs from his face with his wrist, not wanting to get peach juice on his hair. “That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, honey?” 

“You’re alone and you’re happy and I believe that. How do I—How do I do that?” Nezumi’s voice nearly disappeared. He felt stupid and wanted to take the words back, wanted Karan to stop looking at him. He wished there were more peaches to slice.

“I’m not alone. Just because I’m not in a romantic relationship doesn’t mean I’m alone. I have you, and Shion, and Safu now. And you have all of us too.”

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, stepping away from the counter and Karan, going to the fridge and opening it and peering into it for something else to prep. He took out a carton of eggs to whip, figuring he could start on pastry dough.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You could date,” Karan said.

“Didn’t I tell you about the firefighter?” Nezumi started cracking eggs in a bowl.

“Now I’m talking about dating. Not sex.”

Nezumi shook his head. Cracked more eggs.

“You have a lot going for you.”

“Karan, let’s drop the conversation. Can we do that?”

“I know I don’t have to tell you you’re incredibly handsome. You’ve got a great laugh, as we’ve established. Sense of humor. Excellent baker. Sharp, intelligent.”

“I didn’t go to grade school.”

“There are other types of intelligence.”

“And the age thing? Eternal Eve? A bit of a turn off, don’t you think?” Nezumi asked, pausing in his egg cracking.

“Everyone has flaws.”

Nezumi brought the bowl of egg shells to the trash, ran his hands under the faucet to get off any yolk, then returned to his bowl to whisk his eggs.

“If that’s what you want, hon, if you want a relationship, then you know Shion doesn’t have to be the only person in your life you’ve ever loved. I know you like your drama, but you don’t have to turn your life into one of those tragic plays you act in.”

“Right. I just have to find my Rai.”

Karan smiled lightly. “Why not?”

“You’re being really ridiculous this morning. I’m not a fan. Go prep the front, we open soon.”

“I’m just trying to tell you that you don’t have to be unhappy.” 

“I’m not unhappy,” Nezumi said flatly.

Karan raised her hands in surrender. “All right, all right.”

“If the walls are so thin, you’d know I wasn’t unhappy, especially last night with the firefighter,” Nezumi called, as she left the kitchen.

“If you say so!” Karan called back.

The kitchen door swung in her absence. Nezumi stared down at his bowl of eggs, then started whisking.

*

It was sometime in the afternoon when Nezumi was staring at a bag of flour and trying to decide whether it’d be a good idea to make another batch of croissants that he heard the kitchen door swing open. 

Safu had already texted him earlier that she wouldn’t be able to get to the bakery that day, but Nezumi looked up expecting her because he could hear Karan’s voice from the front room still, and Shion had classes right now, and no one else came into the kitchen.

But it was Rai.

“Hey,” Rai said, standing by the door still.

“Two visits in two days. Feels too good to be true,” Nezumi said, watching Rai walk slowly into the kitchen and stop on the other side of the island counter from Nezumi.

“I came by last night hoping to talk.”

“And here I was thinking you came all that way just to hold the door open for me.”

Rai took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“What would you like to talk about, Rai?” Nezumi asked, when the guy continued to say nothing.

“How are you doing? That guy, Daiji, is he someone you’re seeing?”

Nezumi squinted. “Who the fuck is Daiji?”

“Wasn’t that—He’s the guy you were with last night.”

“Are you asking me right now if I’m dating the guy I was with last night?” Nezumi asked slowly.

“I didn’t realize that was a stupid thing to ask.”

“Rai. Why are you here? Is there some party coming up I should know about? Has Shion sent you to bug me about seeing your new place? Are you asking me for permission to have his hand in marriage? What is it?”

“It’s none of that.”

“Then what is it?”

Rai pressed his palms against the side of the counter. “I just wanted—I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Nezumi examined his expression, got nothing from it. “You’re checking up on me?”

“No. I don’t know.” Rai looked down at his hands, then glanced up again. “I know you don’t want to know me. But I want to know you.”

“You’re here to get to know me,” Nezumi repeated.

“I wish you would give me a chance. Our lives can’t be separate, don’t you see that? Because of Shion, we can’t have futures that don’t overlap. Isn’t it better if we make an effort? Don’t you see how it’d be better for both you and Shion?”

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of how society operates, but most exes aren’t best friends with their replacements.”

“But you’re not just an ex. You’re a permanent part of his life. And so am I. It makes more sense that we become friends.”

Nezumi sighed. “You’re extremely tiresome, do you know that? Very similar to Shion in that way, but it’s charming on him. Not so much on you.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here. He doesn’t want me to be here, talking to you. He thinks it’s unfair to you.”

“He’s a smart guy,” Nezumi said, sticking a measuring cup into the flour bag. He knew there was no point in making more croissants, there were already enough, and they weren’t likely to sell out of another full batch before the bakery closed for the day. But he wanted something to do, some way to get Rai out of the kitchen.

Ordinarily, Nezumi would have simply told the guy to fuck off, but he didn’t need to deal with Shion being upset that he’d made his boyfriend cry.

“I’ve got to get back to baking. You should go.”

“What are you making next?”

“Croissants.”

“Can you show me how?”

Nezumi dumped a cup of flour into a mixing bowl. “I’m running a bakery, not a culinary school.”

“I’ll just watch then.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the flour in his bowl, but he said nothing to Rai. He got the butter from the fridge, and when he returned to the counter, Rai had moved to the same side as Nezumi.

“Don’t get in my way,” Nezumi warned him.

“I won’t,” Rai replied.

So Nezumi made croissants, and Rai watched, and when Nezumi had finished the dough and was rolling them, Rai offered to help, and Nezumi allowed it only because the bakery would close soon, and he wanted to sell at least a few croissants before close to validate having made them in the first place.

Rai washed his hands, pulled on the apron Safu usually wore, tied it quickly, and then was by Nezumi’s side again. So Nezumi showed him how to roll up the dough—not too tight but not too loose, enough that it would roll at least three full times and the pointed end of the dough would fall naturally against the center of the croissant. He showed Rai how to curve the rolled dough into a crescent—not by bullying the dough into the desired shape and stretching it against its will, but gently and with care.

Rai brushed melted butter over the rolled crescents while Nezumi cleaned up, and then they were ready for the oven, and Nezumi instructed Rai which rack to place the pans on and how long to set the timer.

“What are you baking next?” Rai asked, while Nezumi wiped down the counter.

“Nothing, we’re closing soon.”

“Then why did you make the croissants?”

Nezumi chose not to reply. He felt on edge and pissed off. Rai was not a bad baker, not that it was difficult to follow simple instructions, but he hadn’t questioned Nezumi’s instructions the way Safu had when Nezumi taught her, and he’d been quick but careful and diligent. He’d been silent, which was a benefit as well. Nezumi had figured he’d ask questions, try to know Nezumi or share information about himself with Nezumi that Nezumi didn’t want. But he hadn’t said a word outside “Like this?” or “Ah, I see” in response to Nezumi’s instructions.

He was not terrible company, and this was the worst of it. He was just a normal, good guy, and Nezumi hadn’t known Shion was interested in that.

Rai didn’t seem to mind Nezumi’s lack of response. He started doing the dishes even though Nezumi hadn’t asked him to, and then Nezumi showed him how to check the fridge for what had to be used up or thrown out before the end of the day, and then Nezumi had him clean out the microwave. Then the croissants were done, and together, they put them on a cooling rack.

“I’ll take them up front. In the meantime, wash the pan.”

“Sure,” Rai said, amicable and still there for some reason, Nezumi didn’t know why.

Nezumi took the finished croissants to the front, where Karan was already starting to wipe down tables. The bakery was empty even though it didn’t close for another half hour.

“Croissants,” Nezumi said, when Karan glanced at him.

“You made croissants? Isn’t Rai back there?”

“He wanted to learn.”

“And you taught him?” 

“I’ll write up a sign that they’re fifty percent off since we’re almost closed,” Nezumi said, setting them on top of the glass counter and looking for a Sharpie.

Karan deserted the table she’d been wiping and came to stand in front of the counter, as if she was a customer. “Are you sure you haven’t stuffed him in the oven? My name’s on the lease, I think using bakery property to kill him would make me partly liable.”

“Is it such a shock that I can be civil to the boyfriend of my good friend?”

“Civil, maybe. But teaching him to make croissants?”

Nezumi stuck his “50% off” sign in a wire card holder and sat it beside the croissants.

“These aren’t going to sell,” Karan said.

“Rai can take them home.”

“What are you up to?” Karan asked, picking up a croissant and looking at it before taking a bite.

Nezumi sighed. “I’m not up to anything, Karan. He wouldn’t leave. He insists we be friends, says it’ll be easier for everyone.”

“And he was so convincing that you invited him to make croissants with you?” Karan asked, a hand over her mouth as she chewed.

“I can’t tell him to fuck off, Shion would be pissed that I’m not playing nice.”

“So you’re playing nice.”

“What does it matter to you?” Nezumi snapped.

“I’m trying to understand.”

“What’s there to understand? Why shouldn’t I teach the guy to make a croissant? It’s not like he’s going anywhere, he’ll probably start working in the bakery soon, right? It’s a family business, and he’s family now, or he will be eventually. Because they’re going to get married, isn’t that the unofficial understanding?” 

Karan didn’t object. She had lowered her hand from her mouth and held the remaining half of her croissant and looked at Nezumi and didn’t tell him he was wrong, and that was enough.

Nezumi let the breath out his lungs. “I get it, Karan. This is how things are. I’m going along with it. That’s why I made croissants with him. There’s no motive. There’s nothing else going on. This is it.”

Karan looked down at the croissant in her hand. She ripped a piece free from it, and Nezumi could see it was fluffy and perfect, steam still rising from the buttery dough.

“They’re good,” she said.

“Good.”

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi waited, but Karan didn’t say anything else, so Nezumi left the counter. He headed back to the kitchen, where Rai was sweeping even though Nezumi hadn’t told him to.

Nezumi didn’t object. Instead, when Rai finished sweeping, Nezumi gave him the rundown of everything they did at close, all the chores that needed to be done in the kitchen and front room respectively. He asked Rai how much time he had, if he’d be able to stay till close and see how the front room was taken care of.

There was no point in keeping Rai out of the bakery. He belonged everywhere Shion did, in every part of Shion’s life. He was Shion’s future, after all. Nezumi couldn’t fight that any longer.

*

Not long after Nezumi made croissants with Rai at the bakery did Nezumi finally visit Shion and Rai’s new apartment. And after that, he went several more times, and Rai came to the bakery more frequently, and Nezumi taught him other things, sometimes when Shion was there too, and sometimes when Safu was there too, and sometimes when neither of them were there and it was just Nezumi and Rai alone.

All of it was unbearable. Being in Rai and Shion’s apartment. Teaching Rai to bake in the bakery. Watching Rai and Shion interact, no matter what they were doing, all of it was unbearable.

But Nezumi acted as if it was not unbearable. He acted, if not happy, then pleasant enough. He acted as if he was fine with all of it.

At nights, he drank more. The old itch to get high began again, but Nezumi fought against this urge as hard as he could. He hadn’t done drugs at all since Karan had moved into his building with her son, and it was the longest he’d gone without since the first time he’d taken anything. His periods of sobriety had previously stretched to a few years at most, never more than three or four.

Nezumi was slipping. Getting messier at nights. He was robbed a few times by the men he took to his apartment, but he never had much cash in his wallet, and he had nothing of value in his apartment to be taken anyway. What annoyed him most was the time his phone was stolen, as to get another had been a hassle.

At nights, Nezumi did everything to forget his life. He needed relief from it the way he used to need relief on a constant basis before Karan and Shion. But during the day, Nezumi couldn’t have this relief. He had to act like nothing was wrong, like everything was fine.

Luckily, Nezumi was a good actor. He could act like he didn’t want to die more than he ever had in his entire life. He could act like it wasn’t taking all he had not to fall back into old habits, the old urge of choosing oblivion over everything else. He could act like he was happy still, the way Karan and Shion had taught him to be. He could act like Shion hadn’t taken it all away, all that he’d taught Nezumi of what life could be, how incredible it was, how lucky Nezumi was to be alive. He could act like Shion hadn’t ruined the very thing he’d gifted Nezumi with in the first place. He could act.

*

Nothing happened in particular the day Nezumi gave in. Rai had come to the bakery after his school day, and Nezumi had taught him how to make soufflés. Safu had showed up at some point, and then Shion had too, just an hour before close. They’d all baked soufflés together, Shion praising Rai’s work because he was a beginner still, Nezumi had only been teaching him for two months by that point.

Then they’d closed up the bakery, and Rai and Shion had gone home. Safu had asked Nezumi if he wanted to get drinks with her, and he’d declined. Karan had asked Nezumi over her place for tea, and Nezumi had declined her request too.

He went instead to a bar alone. Drank a lot and then approached a guy who took Nezumi by the hand, led Nezumi to the bar bathroom, pushed Nezumi’s onto his knees, and then shoved his dick into Nezumi’s mouth.

When that was over and Nezumi stood up, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, the guy held out a small bag of crystals.

Nezumi held them up in the dim light of the bar bathroom, confused and too drunk.

“It’s been a while,” the guy said, zipping his jeans and running his hand through his hair. Nezumi realized he knew this guy, he’d given this guy many blow jobs before, years and years before.

The guy was older now, late forties but not showing it, which was a surprise for a drug dealer. He must not have used his own stuff, dealt it but known better than to be anything like his clients.

“You never quit for this long before,” the dealer said. His name was Masashi or Masanori or Masayuki or Masakazu, or something like that, Nezumi couldn’t quite remember. He thought the guy might have just gone by Masa.

“You’re still doing this? How old are you?” Nezumi asked, still looking at the bag of meth.

Masa laughed. “Not as old as you.”

“I don’t want this,” Nezumi managed, holding the meth back out to Masa, and the dealer just smiled at him.

“You know how many times you’ve said that to me? I know when you mean it, and I know when you don’t. And right now, you’re lying out your ass. You want that so bad you’re salivating.”

Nezumi looked at the bag again. He could envision the next steps easily—crushing it, melting it down in a metal spoon with a lighter beneath it, pulling the clear liquid into a syringe, tying his arm, sticking the syringe in his vein, pushing the liquid into him, feeling the relief of it almost immediately, that heated rush through his body.

Nezumi closed his eyes. When he opened them, he would insist Masa take back his drugs. He would go home. He would sleep off his drinks and go to the bakery, and every day would be the same as it had been, and nothing would change, and he would get through them all, every one of them, every one of them, every one of them.

Nezumi opened his eyes and didn’t give back the meth. Sometime later, he was sitting alone in the middle of his bed and holding a lighter beneath a spoon and watching the crystals melt. He didn’t know where he’d gotten the syringe in his hand—maybe Masa had given it to him too, he couldn’t remember, it didn’t matter. He pulled the liquid into the syringe by tugging up the plunger, then pushed it just a little, making sure there were no air bubbles. He set the syringe and spoon and lighter on his mattress, tied a rubber strap around his left arm with his teeth and right hand. He didn’t know where he’d gotten the rubber strap either. He couldn’t think. He was too drunk to think. This was his excuse, and he held onto it as he tapped his inner elbow, then picked up his syringe, then stuck the needle in his vein, then pushed the plunger and exhaled deep.

As he laid down, he untied the rubber strap. He closed his eyes and felt everything floating away from him. It was such a familiar relief that Nezumi couldn’t be sure it had been over twenty years since he’d done meth. He didn’t spend much time trying to figure out the timeline, as soon he couldn’t think solid thoughts at all.

*


	25. Chapter 25

Nezumi had been shooting up for a week before anyone confronted him. It was Safu who finally did, grabbing Nezumi’s wrist while they were icing cupcakes and stretching out his arm.

“Ow, fuck,” Nezumi complained, pulling back weakly. He was exhausted and jittery all at once. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours in a week but felt as if his skin was alive.

“You can’t be serious,” Safu gasped, sounding breathless. “Even with you acting so unfamiliar all week, when Karan suggested it, I thought she must be crazy—”

Nezumi succeeded in freeing his arm from Safu’s grasp. He pulled his sleeves down to hide his track marks, having forgotten they were there and that being the only reason he’d pushed his sleeves up in the first place, because it was hot in the kitchen.

“Tell me you’ve just been giving Shion a lot of DNA samples,” Safu whispered.

“He gave up on curing me a while ago,” Nezumi muttered, resuming his icing.

“Which drug?” 

Nezumi saw no use in arguing. “Meth.”

“Meth!” Safu shouted.

“Can you not shout?” Nezumi said shortly. He wished he wore a watch, that there were clocks in this kitchen. He wanted to know when it would be time for him to go home, when he could be out of this kitchen and alone again.

He’d found Masa again, easily, after the first time. He’d gotten a decent supply in exchange for a grand in cash and more sexual favors. It’d last him a while. He didn’t have to be worried for a while. He didn’t have to feel a thing for a while.

“I don’t even know what to say to you,” Safu whispered.

Nezumi shrugged. He pushed his bangs off his forehead. He was vaguely aware of Safu leaving the kitchen but didn’t really care, and then she was back, and he didn’t care about that either until his wrist was grabbed again.

This time, it was Karan grabbing it, pushing Nezumi’s sleeve up, her nails digging into Nezumi’s skin when Nezumi jerked away.

“What the fuck?” Nezumi demanded.

“He said it was meth,” Safu said.

“Look at me,” Karan said sternly, the hand that wasn’t around Nezumi’s arm under Nezumi’s chin, pulling his face to look at her.

“What?” he snapped.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“A week, I dunno,” Nezumi said, jerking his arm free and his face free too. “Get the fuck off me.”

“Don’t talk to her like that!”

“It’s okay, Safu,” Karan told her, then looked back at Nezumi. “Meth makes you aggressive. I researched several drugs trying to figure out which one you were on.”

“If you knew, what’s with the goddamn dramatics?” Nezumi asked.

“I wanted to figure out how to talk to you about it. I haven’t figured that out yet, but I guess it’s time.”

“Oh great, I can’t wait, it’s lecture time,” Nezumi said, throwing down his icing bag. “Fuck you two, I’ve been doing my work, I’ve been coming here, what’s it matter what I do on my own time? Who even are you two to tell me what to do? I think by now I’ve lived long enough to have earned the right to do what the fuck I want, yeah? Wouldn’t you say so?”

“Nezumi, we just want to help—”

“You’re not my fucking mother!” Nezumi shouted, and he hated the way Karan looked at him, sadly, with pity, like this was some sort of downward spiral when really it was all Nezumi knew. It was normal, it was all he’d known before her and her goddamn son.

“Honey—” Karan reached out, her hand on Nezumi’s cheek, and Nezumi grabbed her by the wrist, wanted to snap it.

She was fragile and old, and her bones held her years inside of them, and that weakened them. Nezumi’s bones didn’t acknowledge his age. He was young and strong, and he shouldn’t have been, he shouldn’t have been, he didn’t want to be capable of snapping Karan’s wrist.

He didn’t snap her wrist even though he could have. He let go of her and pushed past her, and Safu too, and left the kitchen and then the bakery and kept going. He felt restless and itchy and too full of his own heartbeat. He headed straight to his apartment, where he knew there was a cure. He knew he’d feel better in a minute. He just had to make it there, he just had to make it.

*

When Nezumi woke, he was sweating and nauseous. He groaned, curled into himself, closed his eyes with full intentions to sleep off the nausea, but before he could fall back asleep, someone was speaking to him.

“You’re awake?”

It was Shion.

“No,” Nezumi muttered.

“You should get up, take a cold shower. Your entire shirt is soaked with sweat. You’ll feel better.”

Nezumi was certain a cold shower would not make him feel better. Nothing would make him feel better but sleeping, and then taking another dose after he slept. He kept his eyes closed, satisfied with his plan, but then Shion was shaking him by the arm.

“Get up. Shower, and then you’re coming next door to eat. Mom cooked for you.”

“Fuck off.”

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

Nezumi couldn’t remember. He didn’t care. What did he need to eat for? It wasn’t like he was going to starve to death. Nothing would kill him. He could do anything, and nothing would kill him.

“By the look of you, it’s been a few days. It’s not a good look, Nezumi. You look pretty shitty.”

“Are you going to shut up anytime soon?” Nezumi muttered.

“No, so you might as well get up. I’m not going to let you go back to sleep.”

Nezumi rolled away from Shion onto his stomach, but Shion just grabbed his arm again, and then Nezumi felt himself being lifted off the bed.

Nezumi opened his eyes. “Hey!”

“You’re such a pain,” Shion said, pulling Nezumi up by both his arms so that he was on his knees, and then pulling him more so that Nezumi had to stumble up onto his feet to avoid being dragged by his knees off the mattress.

“Jesus, Shion,” Nezumi hissed, stumbling against Shion, unable to catch his balance as Shion continued to yank him to the bathroom.

“Am I supposed to coddle you? Is that it?” Shion asked, not sounding altogether as if he would do so if Nezumi confirmed his question.

He continued to drag Nezumi to his bathroom, and once there, Shion propped Nezumi against the wall. Nezumi watched him open the shower curtain and turn on the spray before he turned back to Nezumi and started yanking off Nezumi’s t-shirt.

Nezumi fought with him, but Shion was stronger, mostly because Nezumi still felt half-asleep, and then Nezumi’s shirt was off and Shion was tugging off Nezumi’s boxers.

“Do you mind?” Nezumi demanded.

“I’ve seen your dick before. Half of Tokyo has seen your dick, what’s with the modesty all of a sudden?” Shion asked, rather meanly in Nezumi’s opinion, and then Shion was grabbing his arm again and throwing Nezumi into his own shower.

“It’s cold!” Nezumi complained, just as Shion closed the shower curtain on him.

“Use shampoo and soap, don’t do a half-assed job. I’m standing right here, and I’ll throw you back in if you come out and I don’t think you’ve done a thorough job.”

Nezumi shivered in the spray, his hair wetting and matting to his face, out of its ponytail. He continued shivering, his arms wrapped around his chest, and then the shower curtain opened again, and Shion glared at him.

“Are you shampooing or just standing there?”

“You’re being a dick,” Nezumi hissed.

Shion reached into the shower and grabbed Nezumi’s shampoo, held it out for him. Nezumi watched the water pelt Shion’s arm. “Your hair is getting matted and greasy like a stray dog’s. Take care of it, or I’ll do it myself.”

Nezumi grabbed the shampoo from him, and Shion closed the shower curtain again. Nezumi saw no way out of this torture, so he poured shampoo in his palm and started sudsing his hair. He felt more awake now from the spray, and still a little nauseous but mostly irritated and tired.

When he finished shampooing, conditioning, soaping his body, and rinsing all the suds off of him, he turned off the faucet and opened the curtain to see that Shion had indeed not moved.

“Are you clean?” Shion asked.

“Yeah,” Nezumi snapped, and Shion handed him a towel.

Nezumi dragged the towel roughly over his skin, not bothering to dry fully as he stepped out of his shower and sidestepped Shion out the bathroom. He headed to his bedroom, and the first thing he noticed was that his supplies—spoon, rubber strap, lighter, syringe, and the bag of crystals themselves—were not on the side of his mattress where he’d left them.

Nezumi had been dragging the towel over his hair but stopped on noticing the absence of his meth and dropped his towel to the floor on his way to his dresser. He kept his supply in the top drawer of his dresser behind his socks.

“Don’t bother looking,” Shion said.

Nezumi started throwing socks out of his drawer even after he’d shifted them aside and seen his crystals were gone.

“Nezumi, get dressed.”

“Are you fucking me? What did you do with it?”

“Flushed it,” Shion said. He stood by the bathroom door, his arms crossed over his chest, seeming unfazed.

“That was a thousand bucks worth of meth,” Nezumi said slowly.

“You’re rich, it’s nothing to you. Now get dressed.”

“You didn’t flush it.”

“What else would I do with it? Keep it for my own recreational enjoyment? Sell it?” Shion asked, walking farther into the room now and to the dresser, but he ignored the drawer Nezumi had open and opened another, grabbing a pair of boxers and sweats and a t-shirt. “Put these on, let’s go.”

Nezumi slammed shut the now-empty sock drawer and hit the clothes out of Shion’s outstretched hand. “You think you can break into my place and throw out my shit and there’s no consequences for that?” he shouted.

“What are the consequences?” Shion asked calmly, bending down to pick back up the clothes he’d previously offered. “Are you going to beat me up?”

When he stood up, he again held out Nezumi’s clothes. And again, Nezumi hit them out of his hand. When that wasn’t enough, Nezumi curled his hand in a fist and hit Shion in the face.

Shion fell back against the dresser, a hand on his face. He looked up at Nezumi, who was ready to hit him again until Shion held up his hands, palms out.

“Don’t,” he said quickly.

“Get me back my drugs,” Nezumi told him.

“I can’t,” Shion said, still with his back against the dresser. “I flushed them, I can’t get them back, I promise, I can’t get them back.”

Nezumi reached out, grabbed the front of Shion’s shirt, pushed him even more against the dresser, and Shion winced.

“There’s a drawer knob digging into my spine,” he whispered.

“I don’t give a shit. I should break your spine.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t, Nezumi.” Shion’s hands were on Nezumi’s wrist now, and he was pulling, but Nezumi was no longer tired, no longer weak, no longer nauseous.

He was livid. So fucking pissed and panicked, too, that all of his stash was gone—what if he couldn’t find Masa in time? What if the dealer had disappeared, gone somewhere else? Nezumi didn’t think he’d seen his old dealer in years, what if the same thing happened again?

“I could kill you,” Nezumi hissed.

“I know you could,” Shion breathed, and he really did look terrified. Nezumi felt his anger and panic waver, and then he was uncertain, all he felt was uncertain.

He noticed then the reddening of Shion’s cheek, even around his raised scar, and instead of uncertain, Nezumi felt nauseous again. He let go of Shion and stepped back from him and stepped back again and pressed his palm to his lips.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, stepping away from the dresser and closer to him, even though Nezumi had just been about to hurt him—did this guy have no common sense?

Nezumi shook his head, then walked quickly to his bathroom and fell to his knees in front of his toilet and dry heaved.

There was nothing in him to come up. He hadn’t eaten in days. He’d dry heaved several times. He knew it was just an effect of the meth, but he still hated it, the turn of his stomach, the insistence of his body that something come out of him when there was nothing at all to come out. He felt an odd desperation every time he dry heaved, a strange fear that made him clutch the sides of the toilet bowl.

Now, his knees dug hard against the cool tile beneath him. He was still naked and slightly wet and shivering. His heartbeat felt thick in his body the way it did when he needed more—he needed more, but Shion had flushed it all and there was no more.

Nezumi kept dry heaving. Loud sounds came out of him, groans that he made from the struggle of convulsing over the toilet, and he ignored them, didn’t care about them until he felt Shion beside him. Shion’s hands collected his wet hair, pulled it from his neck and face and out of the toilet where some strands had fallen.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Shion told him.

“I hate this,” Nezumi admitted to him, a raspy sort of whisper because his throat was sore, and his eyes were wet. They always burned and watered when he dry heaved. As if his body couldn’t stand that there was nothing in his stomach to come out, so instead it pushed tears out of him, like that was the only substitute.

Shion said more things. Nezumi couldn’t really make out the words. He liked the sound though, of Shion’s voice, the stream of it, and after a few minutes his body was relaxing. When he stopped dry heaving, he sat against the wall of the bathroom, pulled his legs up to his bare chest, and pressed his face to his knees.

He was still shaking. Shion’s voice was gone for a long time. Nezumi closed his eyes and thought he might have fallen asleep sitting against the wall before Shion was back again, and there was something soft touching him, his shoulders, his legs.

“Come, lean forward for a second,” Shion said, pulling Nezumi away from the wall by his shoulders as he spoke, but gently. So Nezumi sat forward, and then the soft thing was around his back.

Nezumi blinked, realized it was a blanket that Shion must have gotten from somewhere, but it wasn’t his blanket. It smelled clean, of fresh laundry detergent, powdery and good.

“Hold this around your shoulders. I’m going to help you stand up, and then we’ll get you dressed,” Shion said.

Nezumi held the blanket tight around his shoulders. He didn’t want to stand up. He didn’t want anything but to be high, to escape his life for as long as he could. “I need more,” he whispered, peering up at Shion, who looked at him sadly.

“I know.”

“I need it.”

“Nezumi, there’s none left.”

“My dealer. He goes to—the bar next to that other one, the one with the blue fish on the door, you know, it’s—He’ll be there, he has to be—I’ll give you money, okay? And you’ll get me it. Shion, you have to—”

“Nezumi, I can’t do that.”

“No, you have to—”

“I can’t. It’s okay. You’ve done this before, right? Gone through withdrawal? What do you usually take for that?”

Nezumi shook his head. He did it cold turkey. He did it so he could feel the pain of the withdrawal, so he could suffer through it, because it was better to feel that pain than to remember how long he had been alive and how long more he would have to be alive, how it would never end. But it took time for Nezumi to get to the point where he wanted that pain, that suffering. He didn’t want that pain now. He wanted another hit. He wanted relief, that was all, that was all.

“You know my pin number, just take my card, go to the bank, take as much cash as you want—”

“Nezumi, Nezumi, listen. I’m not going to buy you drugs. You have to stop that now. It’s time to stop.”

“It’s not time,” Nezumi argued, but his voice came out small-sounding. He pulled the blanket closer to him, and his eyes were burning again, and they must have been watering too because Shion’s face was blurry now. “Please, please—”

Shion was tucking Nezumi’s hair behind his ears, was wiping his fingers over Nezumi’s cheeks because Nezumi was crying. Nezumi didn’t care. He wasn’t embarrassed. He needed this, he was desperate, he needed this.

“Tell Masa you know me—that you know Eve—he won’t make you tip. You’d have to blow him, normally, but if you say you know me, say he can just come here to my place, he knows where it is, I’ll tip him later, whenever, but don’t do it yourself, okay? Don’t do that with him, he’s dirty, and I don’t want you to do that with him, okay?” Nezumi said, pushing Shion’s hands away from his face, needing Shion to listen to him—he wasn’t sure Shion was listening to him.

“Nezumi—”

“Promise you won’t do that with him,” Nezumi said, catching Shion’s hand in his, holding it tight, blinking and feeling more liquid trail down his cheeks, hot on his cool skin.

Shion looked at him sadly. “I promise I won’t,” he whispered.

Nezumi sagged back against the wall, relieved. He released Shion’s hand, nodded at him. “Then you can go. I’ll wait for you here. He knows what I like, just tell him to give you what I like, okay? He’ll know, he won’t try to scam you if you say you know me.”

“I’m not getting you drugs.”

“It’ll be okay, he’s a nice guy, really, it’s not like in the movies,” Nezumi assured him.

Shion just shook his head, and Nezumi tried to understand, leaned forward again and didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand. I need it. I need it. Don’t you get that?”

“I’ll get you whatever you need to get through your detox and withdrawal. Prescription pain killers, anything. But illegal drugs? Meth? That’s done now.”

“No, I need it,” Nezumi insisted.

“You’ve done this before. You can do this again.”

“No, no, just get it, just get it for me, or I’ll get it, I’ll get it, I can get it—” Nezumi tried to stand up, but Shion pushed him back down.

“I’m not going to let you get it. If you try, I’ll call the police and tell them there’s a man dealing meth in every bar I know you’ve ever walked into. You said his name was Masa, right? They’ll do drug busts, you won’t be able to get anything. And I’ll tell them to tail you, that you’ll lead them straight to the dealer.”

Nezumi squinted. “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t want to. If you don’t give me a choice, I’ll do what I have to do. Instead of all that, we can go through your detox together. I’ll stay right by your side, all right? Me, or Karan, or Safu, someone will always be here. Or if you use facilities, then we’ll get you into one of those. Is that what you do? Do you go to a rehab center? How have you gotten sober before?”

Nezumi shook his head. “No. No. Please, please, leave me alone. Please, Your Majesty…” Nezumi was crying again, sobbing now. He was angry and didn’t know why he was crying. He was so angry, but more than that he was scared that Shion was serious. Was he serious? Was he really going to stop Nezumi from the only relief he had? Was he really going to do that?

Shion’s arms were around him, then, pulling Nezumi into his body, and Nezumi sobbed into his chest. He was miserable, and he wanted to forget that. That was all this was about. He wanted to forget how miserable he was, how awful it was to live forever, he just wanted to forget. Couldn’t Shion understand? Didn’t Shion care?

“Nezumi,” Shion said, and that was all he said, and Nezumi slowly stopped crying but didn’t pull away from Shion.

He understood Shion and Karan and Safu would not let him get drugs. He understood he had to detox now. He understood there was nothing he could do about it.

Nezumi understood, and he was terrified.

*

Nezumi had been in Shion’s bed in Shion’s childhood bedroom in Karan’s apartment for what had to be several days now. He wanted to sleep all the time. When he wasn’t sleeping, he wanted meth, and he wanted to eat. He felt, suddenly, starving. And itchy. And exhausted. And awful.

He’d left the bed a few times to bake in the bakery, but he couldn’t do that for long. The itching would get too much, and he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything. He’d burned several pies and substituted sugar with salt in a batch of cupcakes by accident and almost cut his thumb off when chopping walnuts. After that, Shion took him back to Karan’s apartment, to his bedroom, to his bed.

Shion had been sleeping beside Nezumi since he’d started detoxing. Nezumi didn’t ask about Rai. He didn’t give a shit about Rai. He’d happily invite Rai into the bed, even watch Rai and Shion fuck each other, if that meant he had an opening to sneak out and get meth.

But there was no such opening. Shion stayed beside him at all times, and either Safu or Karan was usually close by too, standing guard to relieve Shion when he needed to pee.

While Nezumi detoxed, he watched the bruise on Shion’s cheek change color. Nezumi’s own knuckles changed color at the same rate. Today, or tonight, or whatever time it was, Shion’s cheek and Nezumi’s knuckles were less of the bluish purple they’d been the previous few days and more of a greenish blue, like sea foam maybe.

While Nezumi examined Shion’s bruise, Shion slept. It was the first time Nezumi saw the man asleep. He was always awake when Nezumi was, not that that was often. Nezumi mostly slept. It wasn’t really surprising that this was the first time in days, however many days it had been, that Nezumi was awake when Shion was not.

The strange moment didn’t last long. Shion shifted only a few seconds after Nezumi had decided on sea foam, and then his eyes were open, and he was blinking at Nezumi, who blinked back.

Nezumi laid on his side, and Shion laid on his back, but his head was turned to Nezumi. A few seconds after he opened his eyes, he rolled over so that he was on his side too, facing Nezumi.

“How are you feeling?”

“Pissed that I didn’t use the few seconds you were asleep to make my escape,” Nezumi admitted.

“How long have you been up?”

“Maybe a minute.”

“What did you do instead of escape?”

Nezumi shrugged with only one shoulder, the other pinned against the bed. “Looked at you,” he said.

Shion didn’t say anything to this. He looked at Nezumi for a moment, then rolled onto his back, so Nezumi did the same. It wasn’t easy. Shion had a small childhood bed. It barely fit them both, and Nezumi could tell Shion was trying not to touch him, so Nezumi did the same, tried to leave an inch of distance between their bodies. But that was nearly impossible when they were both on their backs, looking up.

On Shion’s ceiling were glow-up stars. While Nezumi had detoxed, on the rare moments when he wasn’t sleeping, he’d looked up at these stars and tried to trick himself into thinking they were real. They were placed in real constellations. Nezumi had helped Shion stick them up there years and years ago, but he’d forgotten they were there until now.

Shion’s childhood bedroom was plastered in posters, like the one of the periodic table beside his dresser and the one beside of it of the anatomy of a man, with the flesh of the man gone and half the body showing his muscles and the other showing his bones, all of which were labeled. The font was too small for Nezumi to read from the bed, so he was left to wonder what the small bones of the toes and the large muscles in the legs were called in scientific terms.

There were posters of books too, which Nezumi didn’t even know people sold.

“Do you still want meth?” Shion asked from beside him.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, looking back up at the stars.

“I read online that the withdrawal symptoms can last up to ten weeks.”

“Yeah,” Nezumi said. He knew this already. It could easily be longer, but Nezumi hadn’t been on the drugs for that long before Shion had cut him off, so it probably wouldn’t take as long as when Nezumi had detoxed before.

“I can’t stay here for ten weeks,” Shion said.

Nezumi tried to remember if the dipper on Shion’s ceiling was supposed to be the Big Dipper or the Little Dipper. “I know.”

“Unless—Unless that’s the only way you can do this. If you need me here to get through this, then I’ll stay. If that’s what you need.”

Nezumi stopped looking at the stars. He turned his head to see that Shion was looking at him again. No matter what color the bruise on his cheek changed to each day, the way he’d gotten it didn’t change. Nezumi remembered saying, after hitting Shion, after pinning him to his dresser, _I could kill you._ He remembered too, the way Shion had looked at him, the way Shion had believed him.

“I went through several withdrawals on my own,” Nezumi told him. He hadn’t apologized for hitting Shion yet. He didn’t know how to. There was nothing he was sorry for more than hurting him, than scaring him. It was the meth, Nezumi had to blame it on the meth. That meth had made him violent towards Shion was the only reason Nezumi was able to stay in this bed and not do whatever it took to escape, to get more despite the way his body was desperate for it.

“If you want me here, I’ll stay.”

Nezumi didn’t reply. _I always want you here._ There was no reason to say the words aloud. Shion had to know them.

After some time, neither man said anything else, and Nezumi fell asleep again.

*

The way meth withdrawal worked was that sometimes it was just on the edge of bearable, and sometimes it was not bearable at all. In this moment it was not at all, especially because Nezumi had had a nightmare, which became frequent and vivid throughout his detox.

He’d woken himself with his screams, and Shion was shaking him, pushing his hair out of his face.

“It was just a nightmare, it’s okay, Nezumi,” Shion was insisting, but he was wrong.

It hadn’t been just a nightmare. It’d been that night, the night Nezumi lost his whole family, and they’d died, and he’d survived, and he’d been alone, and that wasn’t a nightmare. That was the truth, that was all there was, and even now, Nezumi was alone.

He gripped Shion’s shirt and pulled the man close, and Shion didn’t protest, let Nezumi cry into his chest.

He cried a lot during his detox. Shion had read the symptoms of meth withdrawal to him during the first week even though Nezumi didn’t need to be read these symptoms. He’d lived through them before.

_Depression,_ Shion had read. _Hopelessness. Anxiety. Panic. Suicidal thoughts._

_Well, that last one won’t be trouble, I already have those,_ Nezumi had said, trying to lighten the mood, but Shion had acted like he hadn’t heard him.

When Nezumi managed to stop crying and catch his breath, he didn’t feel any better. He felt the hopelessness and depression Shion had warned him about. Shion combed his fingers through Nezumi’s hair.

“Are you going to marry him?” Nezumi asked, his face still pressed to Shion’s chest.

Shion’s fingers stilled. They hadn’t talked about Rai at all. Nezumi had been sleeping with Shion beside him in Shion’s childhood bedroom for over two weeks now. He left more often to go to the bakery, but he’d stopped going to the theater. His manager wasn’t fazed. Everyone at the theater knew about Nezumi’s occasional bouts with drugs—the previous managers warned the ones that replaced them that this was the price they paid to have Eternal Eve at their theater.

Rai had not come to the bakery at all during the occasional times Nezumi had managed to make it down there since he’d been going through withdrawal. Nezumi didn’t know what Shion had told him. He hadn’t cared. He still didn’t really care, not about Rai. None of this was ever about Rai.

It was Shion he wanted. It was Shion he was desperate for. Nezumi couldn’t take the way they’d been living—separately, acting like that was enough. He couldn’t be alone anymore. He couldn’t do it.

Shion hadn’t replied, so Nezumi leaned back from him enough to lift his face from Shion’s chest. He looked up at Shion, who looked down at him.

Nezumi sniffed. Wiped at his eyes. Said, “You are. I know.”

Shion nodded against the pillow. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“What if I asked you not to?” Nezumi asked.

“Don’t do that, Nezumi,” Shion said, his voice wary now, his body stiffening beside Nezumi’s.

Nezumi knew it was unfair. He couldn’t help himself. He pressed his face back into Shion’s chest, spoke into the fabric of Shion’s t-shirt, which was wet from Nezumi’s own tears.

“Choose me,” he told Shion, curling his fingers around Shion’s shirt, pulling the man closer to him. “Spend your life with me, Your Majesty. I’ll be different. I’ll make you happy. I promise. If you stay, I’ll be better.”

His words came out in a rush. His body ached, and it was for meth, but it wasn’t, really. It was for anyone. It was for the family he’d lost. It was for Shion.

“If you never leave, I’ll do anything for you,” Nezumi promised.

Shion didn’t say anything. But he didn’t move away, either, when Nezumi inched closer to him, wrapped his arms around him, and held him as close as he could.

*


	26. Chapter 26

When Nezumi woke again, it was to the sound of tapping. He opened his eyes and rubbed them and saw Safu sitting up against the headboard beside him, typing on the laptop on her lap. There were papers strewn around the bed around her, which made Nezumi figure she couldn’t just be here to give Shion a bathroom break—Shion must have left.

Nezumi sat up, pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples.

“Morning, sunshine,” Safu told him, not looking away from her laptop.

“I’m going to pee,” Nezumi mumbled, groggy.

“If you’re not back in five minutes, I have to come after you. I have pepper spray that I’ll use to incapacitate you if you try to escape, just a warning.”

Nezumi waved his hand and got up, feeling dizzy and hungry. _Increased appetite_ and _weight gain_ were more symptoms Shion had read to him, but he’d needed the weight gain, so this wasn’t necessarily a problem. Karan cooked for him almost daily, saying it’d been too long since she had anyone to cook for but herself. She told Nezumi, laughing as she did so, that he reminded her of Shion going through puberty with how hungry he always was.

In the bathroom, Nezumi washed his face and contemplated a shower, but he couldn’t be bothered. He brushed his teeth and peed, then returned to Shion’s bedroom and collapsed back on the bed beside Safu, who pulled a stack of papers out from under his side.

“How’s the withdrawal feeling today?” she asked.

Nezumi pushed himself up again. He sat against the headboard with his shoulder to Safu’s and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.

“Did he tell you what I said last night?”

Safu hummed affirmatively.

“He’s not taking it seriously, is he? I’m going through withdrawal, I’m going to say stupid shit.”

“You sound very convincing,” Safu replied, flipping through a stack of papers.

“Where is he?”

“His apartment, presumably.”

“Does Rai know he’s been here?”

Safu finally glanced up from her work. “Did you think Rai wouldn’t notice if Shion wasn’t home for seventeen days and nights?”

“He could have said he was at his lab.”

“You’re not doing a good job of pretending not to give a shit,” Safu pointed out.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “I do give a shit. I don’t need Shion’s relationship to be ruined because he’s lying to Rai about me.”

“He’s not lying to Rai about you. He told Rai you’re detoxing, and he’d be staying with you, and Rai was perfectly fine with it.”

“Rai is fine with his boyfriend sleeping in the same bed as another man?” Nezumi asked.

Safu smiled lightly. “You’re not much of a threat right now, you’ve been a bit pathetic lately. And Rai trusts Shion.”

“You’re being incredibly annoying,” Nezumi said flatly.

“I’m sorry. Should I pretend Rai is a jealous wreck? I thought your act of the hour was that you’re supportive of their relationship.”

Nezumi pushed himself off the bed again and was at the door before Safu called out to him.

“Where are you going?” 

“To get meth.”

He heard Safu grumbling and getting off the bed as he left the room and went to the kitchen, straight to the fridge. Inside were several Tupperware containers filled with different comfort foods. He was peering into a container of beef udon when Safu joined him.

“Hungry?” he asked her, closing the fridge and placing the udon on the counter before reaching into the cupboard for a bowl. He paused, glancing at Safu to see if he’d need to grab two bowls.

“I guess I’ll have a little,” Safu said, so Nezumi grabbed another bowl.

He ladled noodles for both of them, giving Safu more noodles than beef and himself more beef than noodles, knowing what she liked, then heated up her bowl before sticking his own in the microwave.

They sat at Karan’s kitchen table. Safu collected a hunk of noodles with her chopsticks and blew on them, looking at Nezumi as she did so.

“What?” he asked her.

“He doesn’t believe you. He thinks all the things you said were just because you were feeling shitty, going through detox, and that once you’re sober and recovered you’ll go back to your old tune of insisting you can’t do a relationship.”

Nezumi spoke with his mouth full. “He’s right.”

“Is he?” Safu asked, placing her chopsticks back in her bowl without eating anything.

Nezumi, on the other hand, chose to continue eating instead of speaking.

“Nezumi, if he’s what you want, why are you wasting so much time pretending not to? He’s living with Rai, in a year or two they’ll probably be married, after that they’ll adopt and have a family—how long are you going to wait?”

“I’m not waiting for anything,” Nezumi said, scraping his chopsticks around his bowl, then peering into it to see if he’d missed anything. He hadn’t. He pushed his bowl aside and pointed to Safu’s. “You going to finish that?”

Safu slid her bowl towards him. “The whole point of not having a relationship with him was to keep some distance between you two, to make it less painful as he ages, make it less hard when he dies. Is this less painful? Is this less hard? Because the whole meth addiction bit is making me think it’s pretty fucking painful and hard for you to put distance where it doesn’t need to be.”

Nezumi continued eating. His face was no longer terrifyingly skeletal. A little hollow, a bit bony still, but no longer cringeworthy to look at, in his opinion.

Safu sighed. “You can always wallow in your misery after Shion dies. But if you want to get a head start on it and waste the years you can actually be with him and be happy before you really have to be miserable, then go ahead. I’m done trying to talk you out of it.”

Nezumi swallowed his mouthful of food before properly chewing it so he felt it in a solid mass in his throat, moving slowly down. “Thanks for your approval,” he managed, getting up to get himself a glass of water.

“If you eat so much at once you’ll be sick.”

Nezumi did, indeed, feel sick, but he didn’t offer this information to Safu. He drank his water and put the bowls in the sink to wash later because he didn’t think he could stand up a moment longer with his stomach so full of udon. He headed back to Shion’s bedroom.

“Are you going back to sleep now? You don’t want to go to the bakery for a bit? Get some fresh air?” Safu said, trailing behind him.

Nezumi sprawled onto the bed, groaning and curling around his stomach. “Go if you want, just leave me alone.”

“I have to babysit you, I promised Shion I wouldn’t leave your side.”

“Break your promise then,” Nezumi muttered, closing his eyes.

Nezumi felt the bed sink beside him and heard a shuffling of Safu’s papers. He rolled onto his side to face her and opened his eyes.

“Did Shion tell Rai I hit him?”

Safu glanced at him. “No clue. Rai obviously saw the bruise, but I don’t know what Shion told him about it. Why?”

“I shouldn’t have hit him.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be telling Shion that.”

Nezumi closed his eyes. “I know,” he said. He waited to fall asleep. The one good part of detoxing was that he was always exhausted. He could sleep an entire day away easily. His sleep had nightmares in it, but his life wasn’t far from a nightmare, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Sleep took away time, and Nezumi was so grateful for it.

*

A few days after Shion left, Nezumi started feeling much better. He knew the worst of his withdrawal was over and that the rest would be manageable.

He got up from Shion’s childhood bed, where Safu was fast asleep, and peed before going to the kitchen. The microwave clock told him it was a quarter past seven.

“Morning or night?” Nezumi asked, pointing at the microwave. Karan was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea.

“Morning,” she said. “Saturday. Exactly three weeks into your admittance at our rehab center. You look good.”

“I feel good,” Nezumi told her, filling a mug with tea from the kettle and sitting across from her.

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “I think I might check out of the center today.”

Karan watched him warily.

“I won’t get meth. I don’t want it anymore.”

“Not at all.”

Nezumi yawned, pushed his bangs from his forehead. He’d taken a shower the night before, and it felt good not to have greasy hair for the first time in a while. “A little. Not enough to get it and have to go through this whole process again.”

“You do seem more yourself,” Karan said.

“I am. I’m good.” Nezumi took a sip of tea, placed his mug down and leaned forward, his arms on the table. “Listen, Karan, maybe you were joking, calling your apartment a rehab center, but I wasn’t. Really, thank you for this. I’m a nuisance, and you put up with me and let me stay here and cooked for me. And that’s just the past three weeks, that’s not even mentioning all the years I’ve been dependent on you. I appreciate it.”

Karan reached out, placed her hand over his. “I know that, honey. That’s all right.”

“I’m serious. I’ve had to get sober a lot of times before, but it was never like this. It was never this easy. Not that this was easy, but—usually it’s harder, a lot harder, is all I’m saying. Do you understand?” Nezumi was used to detoxing alone. Without anyone. With relapses, over and over. He was used to months, years, decades of torture.

He wasn’t fully out of withdrawal. If there was a bag of crystals in front of him, Nezumi didn’t doubt he’d grab it and lock himself in his apartment and use. But he could stop himself from going to the bars. Maybe that was just right now—maybe later that day, or that night, he’d feel himself slipping, but this was still the most progress he’d ever made in such a short amount of time. And he knew it was because of Karan. And Safu. And Shion.

“I understand, Nezumi,” Karan said, turning her hand over under Nezumi’s and weaving her fingers through his. “We’re always here for you. I hope you understand that.” 

Nezumi nodded. “I do.” He let Karan hold his hand another few seconds, then freed his. He wrapped it around his mug of tea and yawned again, then looked back at the time on the microwave. “Why aren’t you at the bakery?”

“I was tired. I closed it for the day,” Karan said simply.

“Since when did you do that?”

Karan shrugged. “Just a few times that year when you and Shion were dating and you weren’t working at the bakery. It’s hard running it without you. I need a break sometimes, so I just close it for the day. But if you’re feeling up to it, we can go down, open it late.”

“Maybe. Yeah, I think I want to bake today.”

“Okay. Whenever you’re ready, no rush.”

Nezumi drank more tea. He saw Karan look at his arm, so he looked down at it too, realized she was trying to see the inside of his elbow. He stretched out his arm over the table, inner elbow up, and looked at the pale of his skin as well. His track marks were already nearly faded.

“I know you hate it. But your body’s ability to recover is truly amazing,” Karan said quietly, her fingers trickling over the faded marks on Nezumi’s skin. Her touch was so gentle it tickled.

“See, you never have to worry about me. Nothing bad can ever happen to me,” Nezumi said. It was a strange thing to say, maybe because the falsity of it was so obvious.

Karan didn’t mention any of the bad things that had already happened to Nezumi or the bad things that would happen to him, that would always happen to him. Instead, she said, “I will always worry about you. That’s what happens when you love somebody. There’s no stopping it.”

“I’m sorry I put you through this. Honestly, Karan, I feel like an ass.” 

“I’m sorry you put yourself through this.”

Nezumi sighed, wove his fingers through his bangs, left them there so that his wrist covered his face. “And I’m sorry I hit Shion. You shouldn’t forgive me for that. I hit him. I would have kept hitting him. I wanted to.”

“I don’t forgive you for that.”

Nezumi released his bangs. Looked at Karan, who watched him back calmly.

“It’s not the first time I’ve hurt him,” he said.

Karan said nothing.

“Not—I don’t mean—I’ve never hit him before, I haven’t. But I hurt him all the time. Just a few days ago, before he left, I told him—I told him to leave Rai, to be with me. Christ, Karan. What’s wrong with me?”

“So that’s why he left,” Karan said thoughtfully.

Nezumi pressed his hands to his face briefly, then dropped them. “He should stop putting up with me, with all my shit. And so should you.”

“Self-loathing is one of the side effects of withdrawal,” Karan said, after a moment.

“It’s not the withdrawal. It’s me, it’s all of this, it’s the past however many years it’s been since everything has gone to shit. Aren’t you tired of dealing with all of my shit? I’m sick of it, I’m so sick of myself. I know you have to be too.”

“Honey, do you think you’re the only one who makes mistakes? When you and Shion started dating, you were both the happiest I’ve ever seen you, and I didn’t even let myself understand that, what that meant. I was angry and worried, and I let that take over all the good things. Maybe you’d be together still, if I didn’t act like the idea of it was so terrible.”

“Karan, that’s ridiculous—”

“No, I was ridiculous. I refused to let you step foot in the bakery for a year. I made us both miss each other when we didn’t have to, when there was no reason for any of it. I made that mistake, I was the one who was angry and miserable when I should have been happy because the two people I loved most in the world were happy.”

“You were protecting your son,” Nezumi objected.

“Don’t you see, Nezumi? You understood me. Even when I was angry with you, when I made you and Shion miserable, you understood me. And I understand you, I understand your anger and your sadness now, and it’s not a burden to me. None of you is a burden to me. I hate when you’re sad, I hate when you’re hurting, but your hurt is not a burden.”

Nezumi didn’t know what to say to this. He stared at her, then drank more of his tea and looked into his mug.

“I started using again because I was sick of feeling only miserable,” he told his tea.

“There are other things you can do.”

“Like what?”

“Like go after Shion.”

It was not Karan who said this. Nezumi looked up, at the doorway of the hall that led into the kitchen area, and there was Safu.

“Even Karan’s on board now. Right?” Safu said.

Nezumi glanced at Karan, whose lips were covered with her mug, but after she took a sip and placed her mug on the table, she was smiling gently.

It took Nezumi a moment to understand, and then he was only more confused. “Shion told you what I said to him? But you said—when I just told you I told him to leave Rai, you acted like he hadn’t said anything to you about it.”

Karan shrugged. “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

Nezumi glared at her. “Look. First of all, I don’t appreciate that he’s telling you both what I said to him, that was a private conversation.” Safu snorted, and Nezumi ignored her. “Second, I was detoxing, I was half out of my mind. That shit I said, that I wanted him to choose me, that I’d stay with him, that I’d do whatever he wanted—which I know means marriage—I can’t actually do that, we all know that, let’s not get into it all again.”

“If you say so,” Karan said, but she was still smiling.

Nezumi pointed at her. “I do say so. And Shion is the only rational one out of all of you, which is all that matters. He knows I was full of shit.”

“I think you’re full of shit right now,” Safu said.

Nezumi stood up. “I’m going to my place to change, and then we’re going to the bakery. You can come if you’re not going to be annoying.”

“I can come either way, are you going to stop me?” Safu asked.

“And what about Rai? I thought you both liked him. I should tell him you’re rooting against him,” Nezumi pointed out, halfway out of the kitchen but turning back to face them both.

“Right, I forgot you two were best friends now,” Safu said, rolling her eyes.

Nezumi had had enough of the conversation and left the kitchen. He let himself out of Karan’s apartment and went across the hall to his own, where he hadn’t been for three weeks. He could tell it had been cleaned and imagined Karan changing his sheets, wiping down his bathroom, vacuuming his living room. All of this made him feel even more guilty. 

He changed quickly, then headed back out. Karan and Safu were in the hall, and they went down the stairs together.

The outside air was fresh and cool on Nezumi’s skin. He breathed in deeply, felt Karan wrap her arm around his waist as she laughed.

“You really do seem so much better,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He felt energetic, alive. He felt like things weren’t so bad, not as bad as they’d seemed for his three weeks of withdrawal, not as bad as they’d seemed before that.

Not nearly as bad as they’d seemed a few nights ago, when he’d clutched Shion to him and asked for another chance, insisted he could do better, insisted he could make Shion happy for his entire lifetime.

He couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. There was no use thinking about it any longer. There was no point considering the words could still be true.

*

Nezumi began sleeping in his own apartment again. He avoided bars, which meant he didn’t have sex either. This was fine, as meth killed his sex drive and his ability to have an erection anyway, and he wasn’t sure he was sober enough to get it up yet.

He went to the bakery during the day and spent most afternoons at Karan’s, drinking tea with her and Safu when she came by, or at Safu’s apartment, reading or watching cooking competition shows on Netflix with her. A week after he moved out of Shion’s childhood bedroom back into his own apartment, he returned to the theater. His castmates elbowed him, clapped him on the shoulder, told him they were glad he was back, and that was the extent of it. The only time the reason for Nezumi’s absence came up was when his make-up girl took Nezumi’s arm and extended it to look at his inner elbow.

“Did you cover them up yourself? I’d have done that,” the girl said.

“No track marks. I have magic healing powers, being Eternal Eve and all,” Nezumi told her, smiling, and after a moment, she smiled back. Nezumi didn’t know if she believed him or figured he had covered up the track marks and was lying. It didn’t matter.

It was the night after Nezumi’s first day back at the theater—a week and a half since Nezumi had seen Shion last—that Nezumi saw Shion again. He was standing outside the back door of the theater when Nezumi came out. He’d been leaning against the building but straightened up when he saw Nezumi. Nezumi searched for the bruise he’d given Shion, an instinct, but there was no trace of it.

“Hi. You look good, healthy,” Shion said.

Nezumi tucked his bangs behind his ears, self-conscious, surprised at Shion’s appearance here. It’d been a long time since Shion had come to meet him outside the theater. “Thanks,” he said.

“Want to go for a walk?”

It was dark. Rehearsal had gone late because Nezumi was back, and the manager wanted to get him caught up on the new play, _The Love Suicides at Amijima._ The German prostitute play had been such a hit the manager wanted to keep in genre and follow up with another play about prostitutes.

Nezumi had done _The Love Suicides_ a few times before. He remembered one of his first managers telling him and the rest of the cast that when the play was popularized, suicide became so common it had to be made illegal. Any survivor of suicide was charged with attempted murder.

Nezumi enjoyed the play well enough. He died in it, which was the goal. He was cast as a man who fell in love with a prostitute. They committed a double suicide because they couldn’t be together in life and hoped to be together in death. It was meant to be a tragedy, but Nezumi found it hopeful. His current manager claimed Nezumi’s unique opinion of the ending was what made Nezumi’s performance especially poignant.

“Sure,” Nezumi told Shion.

They started walking. It was early March, the weather cool but not cold. Nezumi wore a jacket over his t-shirt and enjoyed the breeze that slipped up his sleeves. He let Shion lead them, and they headed in the direction of the bakery—the opposite direction from the bars.

Shion said nothing, so Nezumi said nothing as well. He preferred the silence. Walking without words with Shion, he could pretend everything was different. That they were just normal people taking a nighttime stroll. That their lives were uncomplicated, easy, good.

They’d been walking ten minutes—Nezumi knew because they were passing the bakery, which was ten minutes away from the theater—when Shion spoke.

“Tell me about the play you’re doing now,” he said, instead of talking about the meth. Or Nezumi’s detox. Or what Nezumi had said to Shion while detoxing. Or the fact that they’d lain together in the same bed for two and a half weeks before Nezumi had said what he’d said.

So Nezumi told Shion about _The Love Suicides of Amijima_ , a full and detailed account of the play from start to finish. It was a harmless topic. It had nothing to do with their lives. It was about sadder people. And if they weren’t sadder people, then at least they were fiction, and Nezumi had always preferred fiction to his reality.

“Do you like it?” Shion asked, when Nezumi finished. They were walking past the ice cream shop now, where Shion used to get different flavors, where Nezumi always got mint chocolate chip.

“The play?”

Shion nodded. His hair was nearly yellow from the streetlamp he walked beneath.

“Sure, I like it.”

“All these plays you’re in, all these roles you have, they’re tragic. Your characters die. And I know that’s what you want, but don’t you also want to be happy? If it’s all fiction, if it’s all pretend, wouldn’t you rather pretend to have a happily ever after than pretend to kill yourself?”

“That is my happily ever after.”

Shion stopped walking, so Nezumi did too. The sidewalk was not empty, but nearly so. A woman passed by them, so Nezumi stepped to Shion’s side of the sidewalk to give her room.

“Did I ever know you at all?” Shion asked quietly.

Nezumi didn’t have to ask what Shion was talking about. The drug addictions. The alcoholism. The depression. In a way, Shion hadn’t really known him. All that Nezumi had been for the century before Karan and Shion had moved into his apartment building was different than what Nezumi became after. Even Nezumi had forgotten his old self. He’d forgotten his misery, he’d forgotten how much time he’d spent doing anything and everything to escape his life. He’d forgotten what used to be his normal. It’d been so easy to forget, and now it wasn’t.

“You do know me,” Nezumi said. “It’s just a different me than the one that needs drugs and alcohol. It’s the better me, the one you know. That’s the one I want you to know.”

“Is it my fault the better you went away?” Shion whispered.

“The better me didn’t even exist before you, Shion.”

“But I’m still here. So why—why did you need drugs, why do you need any of this? I understand why you needed it before me and my mom. I know you were alone, I know you thought you were going to spend an eternity alone, I can’t imagine how hard that was. But now? I’m still here. My mom’s still here. Safu’s here too, now.”

Nezumi was not going to tell Shion he felt lonely. It was a different kind of loneliness, one that Nezumi hadn’t known was possible. To have people in his life and still feel alone. To still feel abandoned, the same way he had when he’d lost his family over a century ago.

He understood that Shion and Karan had made him used to a certain kind of existence. That Shion, in particular, had made Nezumi _want_ in a way Nezumi never before had the luxury to want. Before, Nezumi had been content to only need. But now, to get through the day was not enough. He wanted happiness. He wanted a fullness of life the way other people had. He didn’t just want to die. He wanted to live before he died, to live properly, to live in a way that felt like living rather than simply surviving.

To not have this want felt devastating in a way Nezumi was ashamed of. He couldn’t admit it to Shion. He could barely admit it to himself, how hard it was now to keep going in misery—which had been pure instinct before, which had been normal before.

Shion was looking at Nezumi in a careful way, his gaze heavy and lingering. Nezumi wondered if Shion ever looked at Rai this way. If he ever looked at Rai in a way that made Rai simultaneously warm and bursting and restless and wary.

Nezumi continued to say nothing. He let Shion look at him, and then Shion nodded as if accepting Nezumi’s lack of reply. He started walking again, so Nezumi walked again beside him. Nezumi didn’t know where they were going. Maybe nowhere. Nezumi preferred that. If they were going nowhere, they’d have to walk forever to reach it.

“Do you remember what you said to me the last night I spent with you while you were detoxing?” Shion asked, as they passed a movie theater where he and Shion had seen a fifteen-year anniversary marathon of those ridiculous American _Matrix_ movies.

“Yes.” _Choose me,_ Nezumi had said. _Spend your life with me. I’ll be different. I’ll make you happy. I’ll do anything for you._ He remembered all of it.

“Did you mean it?”

Nezumi slipped his hands in his pockets. Glanced at Shion again, at his cheek, looking for that bruise he’d left even though he’d already looked for it, knew it was no longer there.

“No,” he said, after another moment of searching, after Shion looked back at him. “I didn’t mean it.”

He wasn’t lying. He would do anything for Shion, he would, that part was true. But he didn’t think anything he did would be enough to make Shion happy. He wasn’t good enough at hiding his own misery. He wasn’t good enough at pretending he didn’t want to die. He wasn’t good enough at not hating, at not leaving, at not putting distance between himself and others before distance could form without his permission.

Shion looked away from him. They kept walking. They were nearing the train station now, which Nezumi did not like. He wanted to veer them away from the station into a completely different direction. Somewhere neither of them had been before so that they could get lost, they could spend hours more, the whole night, maybe even days, trying to find their way back.

“What made it all unbearable, what made you turn to drugs—that was when Rai started coming to the bakery, right? I know that bakery is home to you. I know it’s important. I told him not to go. I told him,” Shion said.

“I agreed to teach him how to bake.”

“You did that for me.”

“I have to learn to put up with him. I have to learn to be okay with you having a life that isn’t with me. I’ll do it. Meth was a mistake, I’ll do it right this time,” Nezumi said. They were closer to the train station now. A few yards away. Nezumi wanted to walk slower. Wanted to stop walking altogether. Wanted to stop talking about Rai.

They reached the train station. Shion stopped walking instead of heading down the stairs, so Nezumi stopped too. A man walked out of the station, and Nezumi watched him to give himself a break from Shion.

“I don’t believe you,” Shion said, just as the man Nezumi had been watching walked around a corner, out of sight.

Nezumi glanced back at him. “I won’t do drugs again while you’re alive. I hit you while I was on them. I would have done worse, I wanted to do worse, I could have—”

“No, I meant—I meant I don’t believe that you didn’t mean it.”

Nezumi squinted. “Didn’t mean what?”

“What you said that night during your detox. That you wanted me to choose you, that you’d do anything to make me happy. You did mean it.”

“I was detoxing, I was delirious.”

“You meant it.”

Nezumi pushed his fingers through his bangs. He looked at Shion carefully and felt a rush of heat slip through him when he realized the man looked older than him now, suddenly, just like that. He couldn’t remember when that had happened. He felt sick from it, looked away from Shion, up at the sky to search for stars he wouldn’t find.

At least the sky didn’t change. Shion did, and would, but the sky wouldn’t. It was something stable, Tokyo’s night sky. Black and starless and without light. Something Nezumi could count on.

“You meant it, Nezumi, right?” Shion asked, and his voice was quieter now.

“Does it matter?” Nezumi asked the black sky. It’d be better if Shion went into the train station. If he went home. Returned to Rai, his normal guy, his normal life.

“I guess if it doesn’t matter to you, it shouldn’t matter to me.”

Nezumi looked at Shion then, who had nothing in his expression, nothing in his tone that Nezumi could read.

“You should get home before the train stops running for the night.” Nezumi did not want Shion to go home, but if Shion didn’t leave now, Nezumi worried he’d start making promises to Shion he wouldn’t keep. Promises like _I’ll be different._ Promises like _I’ll be better._ Promises like _I’ll make you happy._

Shion didn’t leave. He reached up, tucked Nezumi’s bangs behind his ears because a soft wind had pulled them out, was sweeping them against his cheek in a way that tickled.

“I just realized you might look younger than me now,” Shion said softly, his fingers still behind Nezumi’s ear.

Nezumi closed his eyes. Shion’s touch left him.

“Good night,” Shion said, while Nezumi’s eyes were still closed, and when Nezumi opened them, all he saw was Shion’s back descending down the train station stairs.

*

Rai had not come to the bakery since Nezumi returned after detoxing. Things, more or less, returned to normal. Nezumi spent some nights at his own apartment and some nights at Safu’s. He started going to bars again. But he didn’t do drugs, and he didn’t drink that much—just enough to make it easier to have sex with strangers and trick himself, if only briefly, into thinking strangers were enough.

He didn’t see much of Shion. Sometimes Shion was at the bakery, but things were different, somehow, in a way Nezumi couldn’t put his finger on. He thought it was that Shion smiled less, offered less of those childish, goofy grins, but maybe that was in Nezumi’s head. Maybe Nezumi was preoccupied, noticing how old Shion looked—older, it seemed, each time Nezumi saw him. They didn’t talk much when Shion was in the bakery. They just baked, and it would only be when Shion left to go to the lab or class or back home that Nezumi would realize they hadn’t spoken of anything but to say, _Can you pass me that bowl of margarine?_ or _Did you already add ginger to this?_

Time passed, as it always did, though it seemed slower somehow. Nezumi thought he’d been drug-free for at least half a year when, on a Saturday night when he was at Safu’s apartment playing chess with her in the living room, she told him, “Happy two months, by the way. I wish I had some kind of chip to give you like they do in NA.”

“Two months of what?”

“It’s April seventh. You’ve been clean for two months. For a good portion of those two months you were at Karan’s being supervised, so I’m not sure if I should be congratulating you for that. But I suppose in your drug-induced desperation you could have murdered us all and gotten drugs, so maybe it’s something to be proud of that you didn’t.”

Nezumi watched Safu move her rook to take one of his pawns. He’d been at Karan’s for three weeks to detox. Shion had visited him at the theater a week and a half after that, which meant it’d been less than a month since they’d had an actual conversation. But it felt like much longer. It felt like years had passed since Nezumi had really spoken to Shion. Since he’d seen Shion smile, made him laugh, called him _Your Majesty_.

Nezumi took out Safu’s rook with his remaining knight. Before he released his knight, Safu said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“You set the trap for me, didn’t you? You want me to eat your rook with my knight,” Nezumi replied, placing her rook amongst her other fallen pieces.

“So you’re going to knowingly fall into my trap?” Safu countered.

“I’m setting another trap.”

“You’re bluffing,” Safu said, but she leaned forward on her knees—they sat on the carpet around the coffee table—and hovered her face close to the board to scrutinize it.

Nezumi leaned back, resting his palms on the carpet behind him. While Safu hovered over the board, her hair fell forward, trickled amongst the remaining pieces.

“I know you’re bluffing,” Safu muttered, touching some of the pieces now and then and mumbling under her breath. Nezumi was considering getting a snack while Safu mapped out all of his possible future schemes when the front door opened.

Shion’s voice rang into the apartment almost immediately. “I can’t stop thinking about what Nezumi said that night he was detoxing, and it’s driving me crazy. Does this mean I have to break up with Rai? I know it was just crap when Nezumi asked me to spend my life with him, and he himself has confirmed it was just crap, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it. Is that stupid? Tell me it’s stupid, I need someone to tell me I’m being stupid. Wait—where are you?”

Shion had gone straight from the front door to the kitchen to Safu’s room, clearly not seeing Nezumi and Safu because they sat on the floor of the living room, and there was a couch between them and the front door that would have blocked Shion’s view.

“Safu?”

“In the living room!” Safu called.

“What? But I didn’t see—” Shion had walked back into the living room and stopped behind the couch. He looked down at Nezumi and Safu.

“If you’re still looking for someone to tell you you’re stupid, I’d be happy to oblige,” Nezumi offered.

“What are you doing here? It’s—It’s Saturday night, you have a show,” Shion sputtered.

Nezumi waved a hand. “My understudy’s parents came all the way from Hokkaido, I let him have the role for the night.”

Shion blinked at him wordlessly. His hair was longer than usual—it had been when he’d been at the bakery two days before as well. Nezumi was surprised he still hadn’t managed to get a haircut. White strands flicked up against the tops of his ears, and others completely hid his eyebrows, were at risk of catching on his eyelashes.

His lips were parted, and Nezumi thought he looked particularly kissable. He tried not to think this but couldn’t really help it.

“Aha! I’ve found your intended trap!” Safu announced, interrupting the silence, but Nezumi didn’t bother looking at her. He hadn’t set a trap. He’d been bluffing.

Shion looked at Safu, and then he looked back at Nezumi. “You’re playing chess,” he said weakly.

“That’s right,” Nezumi agreed, wondering if this was some lame attempt of Shion’s to change the topic, to try to make Nezumi forget what Shion had walked in saying, to try to pretend he hadn’t said anything. Nezumi decided he would play along. “I’m winning.”

“He’s not winning,” Safu said. “Go, I just moved my bishop and ruined your trap.”

“There was no trap, Safu,” Nezumi said, glancing back at the board to see where she’d put her bishop before looking back at Shion.

Shion stood with his hands clutching the top of the couch’s back now, fingers digging into the fabric.

“It’s okay, I was concentrating so hard on beating Safu I didn’t hear a word you said,” Nezumi offered.

Shion dipped his face into the back of the couch between his hands and groaned.

“He’s not beating me,” Safu said. “You’re not beating me.”

“I am,” Nezumi said, still looking at the top of Shion’s head, which was all that was visible of him now. His white locks looked particularly soft in their longer-than-usual state.

Shion lifted his head up, distracting Nezumi from imagining burying his face in Shion’s hair.

“Maybe this is good. It’s better,” Shion said slowly, looking too intently at Nezumi.

“If you’re going to stop paying attention to the match to talk about the complexities of your relationship, you’re forfeiting, and you lose,” Safu said.

“What’s better?” Nezumi asked, not paying attention to Safu.

“That you know what I’m thinking,” Shion said. “You should know I’m considering breaking up with Rai, ruining possibly my only chance at finding someone I’m excited to have a future with, someone who’s excited to have a future with me, all because of some empty promise you made while you were detoxing. You should know I’m considering throwing everything away for words you didn’t even mean.”

Nezumi appraised the man, who seemed nothing but serious. “This is where I get to call you stupid, right?”

“This is where you understand that I need you to be honest with me. I need you to stop messing around. I’m happy with Rai, and I can be happy with Rai for the rest of my life. But if you tell me the things you said while you were detoxing, if you say them now, if you say them and you mean them, then it’s not even a question, Nezumi. You know that.”

“Maybe you should stop giving him so many chances, he certainly doesn’t deserve them,” Safu said, sounding bored. 

Nezumi glanced at her. Her elbow was on the coffee table beside the chess board, and she rested her cheek in her palm.

“Right?” she asked him. “You’ll tell him you’re incapable of committing, and then you’ll continue moping when he moves on before you do something else dramatically self-destructive, and we’ll have to go through all this again. Isn’t that how it works?”

Nezumi said nothing, which was just as well, as Safu wasn’t done.

“Alternatively,” she continued, lifting her cheek off her palm and looking at the chess board again, “you’ll tell him all he wants to hear, then freak out in a few months and break his heart. Which one will it be this time?”

At the end of her question, she moved Nezumi’s queen three spaces to the left, check-mating herself.

“That was your trap, in case you hadn’t noticed it yourself. You win.”

Nezumi looked at the board and confirmed that Safu had moved the pieces so he’d won. He looked back at Shion, who was watching him still, his face less serious, expression softer, sadder.

He must have known too, just as Nezumi did, that everything Safu said—as annoying as she was—was right.

Anything Nezumi said to Shion now would be a repeat of what he’d said before. Any promise he made would be a promise he’d made and broken before.

Nezumi stood up, his legs sore from sitting for so long. “What time is it?” he asked Safu.

Safu looked up at him for a moment, then glanced at her watch. “Almost midnight.”

Nezumi nodded and walked out the living room and around the couch without looking at Shion, who called out to him just as he reached the front door.

“You’re not going to say anything to me?” Shion asked.

Nezumi didn’t reply as he let himself out. Words didn’t mean anything. He’d used them all before, said them all before, and so had Shion. Safu was right—anything they said always led to the same thing. Nezumi broke his promises. He couldn’t help it.

He needed to give Shion something he couldn’t break.

*


	27. Chapter 27

Being Eternal Eve meant Nezumi had perks normal people did not have. They were perks that he did not usually take advantage of, but this felt like as good a time as any. As Eternal Eve, it was quite simple to get people to do what he wanted, so all Nezumi really had to do was figure out what he wanted, and from whom—this was easy enough with a few hours of online research once Nezumi got home from Safu’s apartment. And then all Nezumi had to do was get it done, which took ten hours on Sunday—being Eternal Eve meant Nezumi did not have to make an appointment in the far future or wait months, as the website claimed was common for the artist he’d chosen.

When it was finished, it still had to heal. Nezumi didn’t want to risk going to the bakery, where Shion could visit, so he killed time reading in his apartment. It was late afternoon when he heard Karan coming home from the bakery—he knew the sound of her keys jingling by her apartment door—so he put down his book, went to the bathroom to remove the bandage from his arm and wash it as he’d been instructed, then went next door.

Karan opened her door after his knock and immediately looked at Nezumi’s arm. He wore a sleeveless shirt, as he’d been told to do. He also looked at his left shoulder and down his upper arm before glancing back at Karan.

“I thought we could have tea, if you want company,” he told her.

Karan’s hand was over her lips. She continued to look at Nezumi’s arm, then dropped her hand. “Turn around,” she whispered, so Nezumi turned, lifted his arm as well so Karan could see all of it.

“It’ll look better once it heals.”

“It looks incredible.”

“It should, I got the best tattoo artist in Japan. Cost a damn fortune, I don’t know how people who haven’t been saving for a century are able to afford these things. Mind if I come in? The throbbing is a bit much, tea would do me good, really.”

Karan moved from the doorway. Nezumi went straight to her kitchen and put on a kettle of tea before settling at her table.

Karan walked over to him and touched his arm gingerly at his elbow but nowhere else.

“This is why you weren’t at the bakery this morning?” she asked, her voice still hushed.

“It took ten hours, from figuring out the design and then getting it inked. And with the color and all, it took some time. I didn’t realize it would.”

“How did you choose this color?”

“I don’t know. It’s the most traditional color of the flower, and it reminded me most of him. Which is odd, I suppose. Maybe I should have done red? I thought about it, or doing a mix of many colors, but—”

“No, this is perfect,” Karan said, almost insistently, and Nezumi was relieved. “Did it hurt?”

Nezumi shrugged. His skin was still sore. It had hurt more than Nezumi had expected, but he also had a high pain tolerance.

“She said it’d take two weeks to heal fully, but I seem to have a faster healing rate, right? So I figure a few days, it’ll be presentable.”

“He doesn’t know you got it.”

Nezumi lifted his tattoo-free arm, tucked his bangs behind his ears. “Safu’s always saying I do grand romantic gestures. But I don’t. I never have. And he deserves one at some point.”

The kettle whistled, and Karan left his side to turn it off, then filled their mugs. She brought them to the table and sat across from Nezumi, her gaze again tracing down his arm before lifting to his face.

“He’s happy in his relationship with Rai,” she said gently.

Nezumi wrapped his hands loosely around his mug. “I know.”

“It might be too late for a grand romantic gesture.”

“I realize that.”

“And this will mean… It will mean forever to him. Not something temporary.”

“That’s the point,” Nezumi said, tapping his fingers against his mug, wary now, but Karan smiled at him.

“It’s really beautiful, honey.”

“It might not be enough,” Nezumi admitted, looking down at his mug.

“You’re a man who will live for eternity with a tattoo for a man who will not. If that’s not enough, if you’re not enough for him now after doing this, then nothing you could have done would have been enough.”

Nezumi peeked at Karan, who had lifted her tea to her lips and was blowing softly across the surface of it. Her eyes above her mug were wrinkled. If he looked at her closely enough, though, he could see the young woman she’d been moving into this apartment building, holding a box of kitchen supplies against her hip and apologizing for her son, saying, _Sorry about him, he’s harmless._

Shion wasn’t harmless. He’d broken Nezumi, over and over again, and what a privilege it was to be broken by him, to feel pain like the kind Shion had given Nezumi. Heartbreak and desire and want. It was so incredible, and Nezumi would take more if Shion would give it to him. He’d take anything Shion would give to him. He’d take anything.

*

The tattoo healed by Wednesday. It scabbed on Tuesday morning, and Nezumi forced himself not to pick at it, and then the scabs flaked off by Wednesday morning, the last of them slipping down the drain in his morning shower.

Nezumi had spent every day since getting it in his apartment and Karan’s when she was home to avoid Shion. But on Wednesday, after inspecting all angles of his left shoulder and upper arm in his bathroom mirror, Nezumi dressed and went to the bakery to help Karan open.

He wore a long-sleeved shirt that Karan glanced at as he came into the kitchen.

“Is it healed already?” she asked, looking up from the dough she was kneading.

Nezumi pulled his hair into a ponytail and felt nothing even as he stretched his arm. “I should let Shion take cultures of my cells, he can probably do something with them or implant them in people with cancer or something.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

“He’d figure it out,” Nezumi said, at the sink and washing his hands. When he finished and put on his apron, he went to Karan’s side. “I’ll finish kneading,” he offered. He was faster at it, pummeled the dough harder even though it used to be Karan who’d stand beside him and tell him, _You have to use more muscle than that! How will you activate the yeast with such weak kneading?_

Morning prep passed slowly, and then Karan was going up front to open the store while Nezumi continued to bake. He kept looking at his phone to check the time. Shion had classes until five today, he knew. He figured he might as well close up the bakery before going to see him, but he was impatient by noon and restless before three.

When he went up front to deliver his last batch of baked goods for Karan to put behind the counter, she took note of his growing agitation.

“Why don’t you leave early, hon? I can close on my own.”

“He’s in class anyway,” Nezumi muttered, arranging sweet red bean buns behind the counter.

“It’s a quarter past four now, by the time you get there his class will be over.”

“I haven’t been in the bakery for days, I should stay till close.”

“I’m quite fine doing it on my own.”

“Karan,” Nezumi said shortly, glancing at her, and she lifted her hands in surrender.

“All right, all right, suit yourself.”

So Nezumi stayed and started cleaning the kitchen. He was done cleaning by the time Karan was locking up the front room, and then he helped clean the front room as well and counted the register before heading out of the bakery with Karan.

They parted ways at the door.

“Good luck,” she told him.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Nezumi replied flatly.

“What did I say?”

Nezumi let Karan kiss his cheek before he headed to the train station. The train was packed, as it was rush hour, but even when people brushed against his arm as he stood in the swaying carriage, Nezumi felt no pain, not even soreness. This was almost a disappointment—he could have done with a distraction from his own nerves, from the heat that seemed to line the very underside of his skin. It annoyed him, his own pulse, heavy in his ears. He felt incredibly stupid noticing the wet on his palms and sliding them over the thighs of his jeans as he left the station at Shion’s stop.

The issue was that Nezumi did not know where Shion would be. It was possible he would be at home, the home he shared with Rai, which was not ideal. But more likely, he’d be at his lab at the university, so that was where Nezumi went, forgetting until he stood in front of the building that he needed a keycard to get in.

Nezumi pushed his bangs out of his eyes and tightened his fingers around them, considering his options. He could wait until someone came into the building or left it, and ask them to let him in. Nezumi wasn’t an entirely unknown presence in the lab—he’d been there frequently enough when Shion was taking samples from him for his tests.

But that could take time. He could figure out a way to break in, but it was an esteemed lab, and that could get Shion in trouble if he was caught.

He could call Safu, who also had access to the lab, to let him in, but he didn’t want to deal with Safu’s questions about where he’d been the previous few days or what he was doing here now.

He didn’t have to decide, as indeed someone came out the building after he’d been standing there for only a minute. The man recognized Nezumi and happily let him in, so Nezumi found himself in the labyrinth of Shion’s lab that he’d never been able to figure his way around without Shion’s guidance.

He began his search, aimlessly wandering the lab, finding identical hallways lined with identical closed doors. Nezumi knocked on all of them, received very little responses, and when someone did open a door it was never Shion, so Nezumi had to ask if they knew where he might be.

The first three people just shrugged or frowned at Nezumi like he was speaking in a foreign language. The fourth person who opened a door in either the ninth or tenth hallway Nezumi walked through—he couldn’t keep track—had thick glasses that magnified her eyes to the point they became buglike and cocked her head at Nezumi’s question.

“Describe him,” she said, after Nezumi asked, _Do you know where I can find Shion?_

“White hair, red eyes,” Nezumi replied, an easy description, and the bug-eyed woman immediately nodded.

“Yes, yes. He works in this hall, never knew his name. Shion, you said? Let me take you there, he’ll be in either one of two places. Nice man, works long hours like me. Always refills the coffee pot when it’s empty, that’s a good man.”

Nezumi followed the fast-talking woman down the hall to a doorway identical to hers. She knocked twice sharply and paused, and then the door opened. Shion stood in the doorway wearing huge goggles.

He lifted the goggles and blinked at Nezumi.

“Delivery for you!” the woman said, then nodded succinctly at him and Nezumi and walked back down the hall from where she’d come.

“Hi,” Nezumi said. “I had to recruit help, I can never find my way around here.”

Shion rested his goggles on top of his head, some of his hair flicking against the top and sides of it, other strands of his hair flattening beneath it. “Why are you here?”

“To show you something. Want to let me see what you’re working on first?” Nezumi asked.

Shion squinted at Nezumi, then turned around and walked back into the room. Nezumi followed him, closing the door behind him as he did so.

It was a large white room with rows of white counters, each with assortments of science-y looking supplies on them. It was empty but for Shion, who stopped behind one of the counters, this one lined with open notebooks that Nezumi could see were filled with Shion’s messy scrawl.

“I’m just writing up my notes for the day.”

“Going home early then? It’s only, what, around six?” Nezumi asked.

Shion stooped over one of his notebooks and began writing in it. He didn’t look up at Nezumi or reply to him, so Nezumi left him to finish his work. He trailed around the room to observe the various things on different counters. He couldn’t tell if these were all Shion’s supplies or what on earth he was doing with them.

He returned to Shion after getting bored looking at everything else and sat on a stool across the counter from him to watch him write. Shion glanced up at him only once, then resumed his writing, checking several of his notebooks and flipping through pages as he continued.

Nezumi leaned his elbows on the counter, careful not to jostle any of Shion’s notebooks, and rested his cheek on his palm. He didn’t mind waiting for Shion to finish what he was doing. He was glad just to look at the man, and then Shion was closing his notebooks, setting down his pen.

“I’m done now. What is it?” Shion asked, looking at him.

“Why were you wearing goggles if all you were doing was writing?” Nezumi asked.

Shion stared at him, then reached up, pulled his goggles free from where they still rested in his hair and placed them on a closed notebook. “I forgot I was wearing them. Tell me what you want, I’ve got to get home.” Shion glanced at his watch.

Nezumi sat up straighter on his stool. “Have somewhere to be?”

Shion seemed to hesitate, then said, “Dinner with Rai.”

“Ah.”

“So?”

Nezumi had felt calm, watching Shion write his notes, but suddenly he was restless again. He pressed his palms to his knees, glanced around the lab. Shion was standing, looking down at him, even though there was a stool right beside him that he could have been sitting on while he’d written his notes.

“Nezumi, I don’t want to be late,” Shion said, when Nezumi said nothing.

“Okay, okay,” Nezumi said. He stood up, then pulled off his shirt, feeling mildly ridiculous but unable to think of another way to show him.

Nezumi didn’t look at his arm. He looked only at Shion, watched Shion’s eyes move from his face to his shoulder, watched his impatient expression fall away.

“That’s not real,” Shion whispered, after several seconds.

“I certainly hope it is, or all that needle poking was just rude.”

Shion was across the counter from Nezumi, so he had to walk around it. His eyes stayed on Nezumi’s arm all the way around the table, and then he was in front of Nezumi.

He lifted his hand but stopped with his fingers inches from the tattoo. “Can I touch it?” he breathed.

Nezumi nodded. “It’s healed.”

Shion’s touch started from the top, where Nezumi’s shoulder started from the curve of his neck. Shion’s fingers skimmed over the flowers—asters, different shades of purple ranging from light lavender to deep violet—that spread over Nezumi’s shoulder and fell down his upper arm. They were mostly in a thick bunch that loosened lower on Nezumi’s arm so that only a few trickled down to his elbow, where the tattoo stopped.

Nezumi had chosen his left arm because Shion had told him once, when he was still in grade school, maybe ten or eleven years old, that the reason people wore wedding bands on their left hands was because there was a vein that started in the left ring finger that stretched all the way to the heart. Nezumi wasn’t sure if this was true or not, and a part of him thought all veins stretched to the heart. But the fact—false or not—had stuck with him, apparently.

“This one isn’t finished,” Shion said, turning Nezumi’s arm around to expose the lowest aster that sat just above the crease of his elbow, just above where Shion used to draw his blood.

“There’s a hundred twenty-nine petals. One for each year I’ve lived. Next year, I’ll get another petal, and another until that flower is done, and then the artist will start another one.”

Shion’s gaze met Nezumi’s only briefly before he was back to looking at the tattoo, seeming to examine it with both his eyes and his light touch. “When did you do this?”

“Sunday.”

“It’s healed already,” Shion breathed, sounding more like he was talking to himself than Nezumi, so Nezumi said nothing.

He couldn’t remember the last time Shion had touched him like this. Lightly, like he was something fragile. Ordinarily, from any other person, Nezumi would have hated a touch like this, but from Shion he craved it. He wanted to be fragile. He wanted to be easily broken, to be easily hurt. He felt like Shion might kill him, touching him so lightly, and that was what Nezumi wanted more than anything else.

He let Shion touch him as long as he needed, and then Shion removed his hand and stepped back. He looked at his tattoo for another moment before looking at Nezumi himself.

“I know I’ve said a lot of things to you,” Nezumi told him, when Shion remained silent. “I’ve promised you things and taken those promises back. I don’t think my words can mean much anymore. They certainly don’t to me, so I can’t imagine they mean anything to you. So I did this to show you—I want you to know that I’ll give you all the time you’ll take from me. All of it is yours. My entire lifetime, forever, eternity, it’s been yours, it’ll always be yours, and even if you’ll just take a regular lifetime of it, that’s fine, too. You can have that. I want to do this properly, without an expiration date, a life with you that will last as long as you’ll let it, your whole life if you’ll let it. If you still want that.”

Nezumi still held his shirt, bunched up in both hands, and he dug his fingers hard into the fabric. He wasn’t like Shion, used to saying everything he thought, everything he felt. He lied instead, to Shion, to himself, but he couldn’t do that anymore. Shion was already starting to look older than him. He’d wasted so much time, and he had time to waste, but Shion didn’t. Shion barely had any time at all.

Shion looked at Nezumi for a long time, then back at the tattoo, just his eyes tracing it now. “A petal for every year you’ve been alive. Even though you hate counting the years.”

“Each year I’ve been alive led me to you. You make it hard to hate them.”

Shion raised an eyebrow. “Those are some nice lines.”

Nezumi exhaled hard, squeezed the fabric of his shirt. “Give me a break, Your Majesty. I’m trying here.”

“You’ve put me through a lot of shit.”

“I know.”

“And I’m currently with a man who’s put me through no shit at all.”

“Right. Yeah. I know,” Nezumi muttered, looking down at his shirt in his hands, wanting to put it back on.

“I’ve given you a lot of chances to have me, Nezumi. I’ve put myself out there again and again with you, and you’ve shot me down, or entertained yourself with me for a little bit before breaking my heart, over and over.”

“Look, I get it—”

“I asked you if you meant what you said when you were detoxing. You said no. Remember that? And I asked you again, and you said no. Do you remember?”

Nezumi clenched his jaw. He nodded tightly.

“And now here you are with a tattoo telling me your life is mine, but it’s not really. It’s my life that’s yours, and you’ve known that, and you’ve taken advantage of that, taking me when you want me and then pushing me away and then wanting me again just because someone else has me. Like a toddler who tires of a toy until someone else expresses interest. Right?”

“Jesus, Shion. I get that I’m a piece of shit, what do you want from me?” Nezumi snapped.

“I don’t want dramatic gestures! This tattoo, it’s beautiful, Nezumi, it’s incredible, and it’s permanent, you’ll have it for the rest of your life. I do understand the significance of that, and I appreciate that, and I’m amazed by it, but that’s never what I was asking you for. I wanted over and over just to sleep next to you, to love you, to be with you, and you never let me do that. You never let me do that,” Shion said, voice quieting and trailing off. He looked, more than anything, exhausted.

Nezumi did not point out that Shion had, indeed, asked Nezumi to get a tattoo. He understood fully that was not the point. He understood.

Shion pushed his fingers through his hair, making it stand up in an incredibly sexy way, but even that was not enough of a distraction from how hollowed out Nezumi felt or from the shame pulsing through him.

“You’re so—You’re so…” Shion shook his head, trailed off, and looked at the ceiling before looking at Nezumi again, his tattoo again. Nezumi was glad he hadn’t put his shirt back on.

He loved when Shion looked at him. He’d tattoo his whole body if it would make Shion look at him. He wanted to be the focus of Shion’s attention, even if Shion was angry, irritated, anything. Nezumi wanted everything Shion felt to be because of him, and that was selfish, and childish, and unfair, and Nezumi knew that, but that was who he was, and no one understood that more than Shion did. No one understood him more than Shion did, no one knew him, had ever known him, like Shion did. Nezumi had never realized before Shion how important it was to be known.

“You can’t just go and get beautiful tattoos like this on a whim. You clearly had a great artist. You had to have made an appointment, what, a year in advance?” Shion demanded, sounding suddenly angry for some reason.

“I used the Eternal Eve card,” Nezumi said.

Shion crossed his arms over his chest. “Right. Of course, you did. You just get everything you want. It’s so easy for you.”

“I wouldn’t say this is easy,” Nezumi offered.

“Except it is! I made my mind up about you years ago, and you were on the fence, so we never could have anything good or real. But now, the moment you decide you’re up for it, I’m supposed to drop my life, go along with your change of heart.”

“You don’t have to drop your life. You don’t have to do anything. I came here and told you what I had to say. You don’t have to take me if you don’t want to.”

“But I do want to! And you know I do! Which makes you so goddamn infuriating I can’t stand it!” Shion shouted. “Just a few days ago, I was asking you to reconsider, but you had to walk out all mysterious—”

“I had to get this tattoo,” Nezumi reminded.

Shion pointed at him. “No, you had to do it on your terms. Everything on your terms. Always.”

Nezumi held up his hands in surrender, one still holding his shirt. “All right, Your Majesty, you win. How about this, you tell me to fuck off today, then take your time and come back to me and say you’ve reconsidered, and I’ll act all grudging, and we can make it be on your terms that way.” 

“Don’t pretend not to know how unfair you are,” Shion warned.

Nezumi sighed, dropped his hands. “I know it’s unfair. What am I supposed to do about that? What will make it tolerable for you to give me another shot? Do I get on my knees and beg?”

Shion put his hands on his hips. “Yeah.”

“Excuse me?”

“You offered. Get on your knees and beg,” Shion said, and there was no hint on his face of humor, but Nezumi still searched.

“Are you crazy?”

“Are you desperate? Because I’ve been desperate over and over again, and you’ve shot me down, and now it’s your turn.”

“So you’re telling me you’re just going to shoot me down even after I beg on my knees?” Nezumi asked, skeptical.

“Why don’t you get down there and find out?” Shion said, pointing to the floor.

Nezumi looked at him for another moment, then placed his shirt on Shion’s counter and lowered to the floor on his knees. The tile was cool and hard even through his jeans. Nezumi looked up, blowing his bangs off his forehead so he could see Shion, and laced his fingers together in front of his chest.

“Your Majesty,” he said, while Shion looked down at him. “I am on my knees, and I am begging you. Let me love you for the rest of your life.”

Shion’s hard expression turned wary. “You can get up now, you look ridiculous,” he said, after a long moment.

Nezumi didn’t get up. He kept his voice even, serious. His knees hurt, and he ignored them. “And not just that. I need you to love me for the rest of my life, too. Will you do that?”

Shion stared at him, then nodded, and then he held out a hand.

Nezumi took it. He let Shion pull him up, and Shion didn’t let go of him when he was standing, so Nezumi didn’t let go either. He stepped closer to Shion, their hands between their chests, Nezumi still shirtless. He stepped even closer until there was barely room for their hands between them.

His face was right in front of Shion’s, but Shion didn’t lean forward, so Nezumi didn’t either.

“Don’t kiss me. I have to talk to Rai before we do anything.”

“I understand,” Nezumi told him. He didn’t do anything. He leaned forward, but only so that his nose skimmed Shion’s cheek, only so that he could hear Shion’s breath hitch, only so that he could dip his head down, rest his forehead on Shion’s shoulder, feel the solidity of the man beneath him.

“I want everything, Nezumi. You know that’s what you’re agreeing to, right?” Shion asked quietly, and Nezumi felt the fingers of Shion’s free hand tuck his bangs behind his ear.

“I’d give you an eternity if you’d take it, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said softly. There was a brief pressure against the side of his head, and Nezumi realized this pressure was Shion’s lips at the close murmur of Shion’s voice.

“I’ll take it,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi let himself believe, for just a second, that Shion’s promise was possible.

*


	28. Chapter 28

After Nezumi let Shion look at his tattoo for another minute, he put his shirt back on, and they left the lab together. Nezumi was thankful for Shion’s guidance, as he doubted he’d have made it out of the maze of identical hallways without him.

Outside the lab, the sun was setting and sharp. Nezumi squinted in it, startled by it. For some reason, he’d felt as though hours had passed in that lab, was certain he and Shion would be exiting into the thick dark of a Tokyo night.

“I have to talk to Rai,” Shion said, while Nezumi continued to squint.

“I know.”

“This is going to be awful.” 

Nezumi said nothing.

“It’s his worst fear that this would happen, and I’ve assured him countless times it wouldn’t happen, and now it’s happened,” Shion continued.

“I’d offer to share you, do something polyamorous, but I really don’t care for sharing,” Nezumi said.

Shion sighed. “I thought about that, too, but I think it’d make me go crazy if you and Rai had sex.”

“What? You thought about that? I was joking.”

Shion shrugged and didn’t respond, which was concerning, but he didn’t allow Nezumi time for more interrogation, as he was saying, “After I talk to Rai, however long that takes, I’ll go to Safu’s apartment to spend the night. If you want to be there, that’d be good, I think. I mean, maybe to be a decent human being I shouldn’t even touch you for, like, forty-eight hours after I break up with Rai, but I don’t think I’m a decent human being. Definitely not. I’m a horrible human being. I might as well just accept that.”

“You’re not a horrible human being,” Nezumi told him.

Shion did not look convinced. “Will you be at Safu’s?”

“Sure, if you want me there.”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take to talk to Rai. I’m not just going to dump him and walk out. It could be hours for all I know. It could be all night.”

“I’ll wait for you at Safu’s all night. All day tomorrow. Doesn’t matter to me,” Nezumi replied, and Shion narrowed his eyes. Nezumi couldn’t tell if it was from suspicion or just the sharp setting sun in his eyes too.

“Well, okay then,” Shion said, taking a step back, and Nezumi understood that Shion wasn’t sure whether this was real, whether to trust him.

That was fair. Nezumi wasn’t trustworthy. He’d done nothing to gain Shion’s trust. He already planned to spend the rest of Shion’s life doing everything to make that up to him.

“I’ll see you soon, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, stepping back in the other direction, towards Safu’s place.

Shion looked at him for another moment, then abruptly turned and walked away.

Nezumi took his time watching Shion for a few more moments, then headed to Safu’s. He felt warm and oddly energetic and wasn’t sure what to do about this. He clenched and unclenched his fists, too restless, a different kind of restless than when he’d been on his way to see Shion.

Now, he felt a restlessness for the rest of his life. Or, at least, the next few decades, which was more of his life than Nezumi had ever looked forward to before.

*

Nezumi hadn’t thought he’d fall asleep waiting for Shion at Safu’s, but he must have, as he was woken by someone shaking his shoulder.

He opened his eyes, groggy, and saw Shion.

“Come to the bedroom,” Shion whispered. “I want to sleep in the same bed as you.”

Nezumi pushed himself until he sat up. He was lying on the couch in Safu’s living room. _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ was still in his hands, his thumb between the pages to mark his place.

Nezumi set the book on the couch, letting his place be lost. He sat up fully, then stood up and followed Shion to the bedroom that used to be Shion’s, and then it was both of theirs, and then it was just Shion’s again, and then it was Shion and Rai’s, and then it was Nezumi’s.

“What time is it?” Nezumi murmured, slumping onto the bed, finding the sheets cold in comparison to the couch, which had soaked up his body heat.

“It’s almost four in the morning. I’ll just brush my teeth and come back, go on to sleep,” Shion said from somewhere else in the room.

Nezumi’s eyes were already closed. He pulled a blanket up halfheartedly, and it only covered half his body, but he didn’t care. He fell asleep again almost instantly.

*

When Nezumi woke again, Shion was asleep beside him. Nezumi still felt sleepy and wasn’t sure what time it was, but he didn’t think it was morning yet.

He slid closer to Shion on the bed and closed his eyes again. He thought he felt happier than he ever had in his life, but he couldn’t be sure. Before he could think about it too long, he was asleep again.

*

Nezumi woke, this time certain it was morning thanks to the sun streaming in through the blinds, to find Shion still asleep. Shion was on his stomach, curled to the side to face Nezumi. He wore just a t-shirt and boxers, and the blanket was tangled by his ankles. His white hair fanned against his pillowcase.

Nezumi didn’t go back to sleep. He was no longer tired. He didn’t care what time it was. He laid still and looked at Shion, taking in the parts of him that were familiar and the parts of him that were older, that were changed. There was much more of the former than the latter, which was a relief. Even the sound of Shion’s sleeping breaths was familiar, the faint skate of his inhales, the soft wind of his exhales. Nezumi hadn’t realized it was a sound he’d missed until he heard it now. He felt, more than anything, relief, but with his relief was also longing, and that felt absurd and unwarranted because Shion was right here, right here. There was no reason for Nezumi to ache for him, to want him so badly when he had him now.

A part of Nezumi wanted to wake Shion. But a larger part of him wanted Shion to sleep longer so that Nezumi could watch him, take him in, feel his ridiculous feelings and let them fade into something less desperate before Shion opened his eyes and scrutinized Nezumi in that way he did, that way that saw everything.

So Nezumi didn’t wake Shion. He watched the light climb up the bed, catching on Shion’s feet and rising up his ankles, his knees, his thighs, Nezumi’s gaze following this progression intently. He’d missed morning Shion, sleeping Shion, a Shion that was relaxed and unfazed, a Shion that couldn’t be upset by Nezumi or hurt by him.

There was a burn on the top of Shion’s wrist that Nezumi noticed when the morning sun illuminated it. Nezumi touched it, the first time he touched Shion that morning. He wondered if the burn was from baking or maybe from cooking or possibly from something in the lab, some heat-involved experiment. Nezumi wished he’d read Shion’s articles. He knew the man had published several by now. He knew Shion was a dominant figure in his field, biochemical engineering or medicine or some combination of that. He knew Shion was important to a lot of people, not just Nezumi, and that amazed Nezumi, how young and influential Shion was, how humble he was and hardworking. He was not an average man, but someone extraordinary, and Nezumi wasn’t sure Shion was fully aware of this.

Sometime after the morning sun was fully in the room, Nezumi didn’t think he could lay beside Shion any longer without waking him out of his own selfishness to talk to the man. He slipped out of bed, regretting it the moment he was standing and out of the warmth of the sheets. He left the room, went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth and looked at the shower. He decided not to take one, then realized taking a shower would kill time, and maybe Shion would be awake when he got out. So he showered, cleaned himself more carefully and meticulously than he had in weeks. Seeing his tattoo again in the shower surprised him, and he looked at it as if it was a foreign thing until his neck hurt from craning it.

When he got out, steam fogged the room, and his skin was hot. He was still sweating slightly when he returned to the bedroom and dressed in sweats and a t-shirt—clothes he kept here for when he slept over to keep Safu company.

Dressed, Nezumi stood in front of the bed and looked at Shion on it. He didn’t know what time it was. Shion was usually an early waker as a baker’s son, but Nezumi knew he’d gotten home at four in the morning. He must have spent hours talking to Rai, and Nezumi was tempted to think about what possibly could have been said, but he didn’t want to ruin his own happiness and contentment, so he pushed the thought out of his mind and left the bedroom.

Safu was at the kitchen counter on her laptop, which was surprising. It was Thursday, Nezumi knew.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Nezumi asked.

Safu glanced at him. “I was wondering when you’d be up. Is Shion still asleep? That’s odd for him, it’s nearly ten. What time did he get home last night?”

“Four in the morning,” Nezumi said, checking the coffee maker and seeing that Safu had left half a carafe. “Can I finish this?”

“Yeah. Four? Poor Rai.”

Nezumi frowned as he poured his coffee. He’d filled Safu in, after getting to her apartment from the lab the previous afternoon, on the gist of his and Shion’s conversation, and he’d also shown her his tattoo, which she’d exclaimed over with much more enthusiasm than he’d expected. He’d thought she’d say it was stupid, or melodramatic, and felt somewhat vindicated that she loved it.

“Aren’t you on my side?” Nezumi asked, sitting on the stool next to her with his coffee.

Safu glanced up from her laptop. “It’s not really about sides. Shion’s always loved you more. But it sucks for Rai, even you must realize that. I mean, he thought he had a family in Shion, he thought he had a future with him.”

“I guess,” Nezumi muttered, sipping his coffee and wincing. It was cold. He slid off his stool to heat it up.

“They were in a committed relationship for two and a half years. They had a place together. They talked about marriage as if they were already engaged.”

“I know all this.”

“Do you? It wasn’t just Rai who wanted all of that. Shion wanted it, too,” Safu said, and Nezumi slammed the microwave door too loudly, flinched, looked instinctively to the hallway as if he could see through the walls to Shion in bed, stirring from the noise.

“Sorry,” Nezumi breathed, for the microwave. He set it for two minutes and leaned against the counter to wait, facing Safu, who had tilted her laptop down so she could see him.

“I’m not trying to be awful. I am on your side,” Safu said, more gently. “I know he’ll be happier with you. I’m just saying, maybe you should be more aware that Shion just went through a huge break up. He had his whole life envisioned with Rai. He’d completely given up on you and become okay with that and happy with Rai, and now that’s all over. That’s big for Shion. When he loves someone, he does it properly, not half-heartedly. You know that.”

Nezumi collected his hair in his hands. It stuck to his neck, still damp from his shower. He wanted to put it up, get it off his skin, but then he remembered that Shion liked the waves that braids gave it, so he collected it over one shoulder and began to braid.

Safu watched him for a moment, then sighed. She pushed her laptop screen back up to full height so that it shielded the bottom half of her face. “I know it’s not really your problem what Rai is feeling, but I figured you’d be more concerned about Shion.”

“Who said I’m not concerned?” Nezumi asked.

“You certainly don’t look concerned.”

The microwave went off, so Nezumi turned to open it and take out his coffee. He was concerned, mildly, over Shion’s feelings about his break up, but whatever concern he felt was certainly eclipsed by his own happiness, and he thought that was valid, he figured he was allowed that. Nezumi was not someone who felt happiness often. The feeling was new to him, and not pushing it away was new to him. He wasn’t going to do that now, no matter how cynical Safu insisted on being.

Nezumi took his now-hot coffee back to his stool beside Safu. He leaned closer to her, deciding to forgive her for her negativity. It must have been tiring, dealing with him and Shion. He supposed he could forgive her for that.

“What are you working on?” he asked, trying to peer at her laptop screen, but she angled her laptop away from him.

“It’s confidential. Patient files.”

“Why aren’t you at work?”

“I’m working from home.”

“Why?”

“It’s my home, I don’t have to give an excuse to be here. Why are you here?” Safu snapped.

Nezumi grinned at her until she looked at him, and she sighed.

“It’s creepy to see you so happy. Try to tone it down, you’re freaking me out.”

“Admit it. You’re not really in a bad mood. It’s all a front.”

“I have a lot of work to do, stop bothering me,” Safu muttered, but her lips were twitching.

Nezumi left his coffee to cool, as it was now too hot to drink. He searched the stacks in the living room for a book and found _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ where he’d left it on the couch the night before. Beside it was his phone, which he picked up to text Karan that he wouldn’t be at the bakery until the afternoon, possibly, which she had probably already assumed since he hadn’t come in to open. He took _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ back to the kitchen, settled back on the stool beside Safu, and flicked through the pages, trying to remember where he’d left off before falling asleep.

He had found his place and read another chapter and a half before he heard his and Shion’s bedroom door opening. He looked up from his pages toward the hallway, but the next thing he heard was another door closing, and then the sound of the toilet flushing.

“Shion’s up,” he told Safu, who didn’t look away from her laptop.

“It’s almost eleven. He really slept in.”

Nezumi returned to reading, distracted from the words of the page by the sounds of the sink faucet, and then the shower running. The shower finally turned off, and Nezumi listened to the bathroom door opening, then another door closing—his and Shion’s room door. He assumed Shion was getting dressed and tried to read more, then gave up and folded his page corner to mark his place before closing it and resting it on the counter beside his now-empty coffee mug.

“I’ll go check on him,” Nezumi told Safu, sliding off his stool.

“I don’t care,” Safu murmured, leaning over her laptop and typing intently now, so Nezumi left her to her work.

He stopped at his and Shion’s closed room door, listening to the faint noises from inside, then knocked.

“Your Majesty, it’s me. Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Nezumi opened the door, found Shion with his towel around his waist and his back to Nezumi, digging through a drawer of the dresser.

Nezumi closed the door behind him and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Shion, who turned just his head.

“I’m borrowing your clothes.”

“That’s fine.”

“I meant to bring a duffel bag with clothes last night, but I totally forgot,” Shion said, back to his rummaging. “Will your jeans fit me?”

“The legs will be long by an inch or so, but it should be fine. You can have the sweats I’m wearing, and I’ll take jeans,” Nezumi offered, but Shion shook his head, took out boxers and a t-shirt.

“I’ll just wear boxers for now, I’m too hot from my shower anyway.”

Nezumi watched Shion drop his towel. He stepped into the pair of Nezumi’s boxers and pulled on the t-shirt before picking the towel from the floor and rubbing it through his hair. He looked at Nezumi properly then, his gaze going almost instantly to Nezumi’s arm.

“You need to get more sleeveless shirts,” he said, after staring for a moment.

“I’ll look into that.”

Shion continued to stare at Nezumi, then seemed to realize what he was doing and said abruptly, “Let me put my towel back.” He walked quickly out of the room, but he was back again and closing the door behind him in seconds.

He stood in front of the bed, looking down at Nezumi, who looked up at him.

“I feel like—” Shion cut himself off, held his hands out, palms up, in a gesture Nezumi couldn’t understand.

“What are you doing?”

Shion looked at his own hands as if they might have the answer before dropping them back to his sides. “I don’t know. I feel—I feel antsy.”

Nezumi patted the mattress beside him, and after staring at the bed, Shion came and sat next to him, pivoting to face him, his hands now in a knot on his lap.

“Do I kiss you?” Shion asked, truly seeming confused.

Nezumi laughed. “You can. What’s going on? You’re acting a little crazy.”

“I feel a little crazy. This—You—This is all I’ve wanted, and now I have it, and I don’t know what to do first.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got time to do everything you want,” Nezumi said, but Shion didn’t look comforted.

There was a small crease between his eyebrows, and Nezumi decided he might as well get it over with.

“Should we talk about Rai?” he asked, and the crease between Shion’s eyes deepened.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know. How did it go last night?”

“How do you think it went?” Shion asked, his voice sharper than Nezumi had expected, and he leaned back.

“Are you mad at me?” Nezumi asked slowly.

Shion sighed, more dramatically than Nezumi thought necessary. “No. It was just hard to do.”

Nezumi examined Shion, who was looking down at his knotted hands now. “Hard for him, or hard for you?”

Shion looked up again. “Both of us.”

Nezumi stiffened.

“He was a big part of my life.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Nezumi said, standing up, stepping away from the bed, skin prickling with a heat that had been absent that morning as he’d watched the sun climb up Shion’s body.

“Nezumi.”

“What?”

Shion said nothing until Nezumi looked at him. “I can’t tell you not to be jealous, you’re entitled to feel that. But it’s a little unreasonable, don’t you think?”

Nezumi crossed his arms. “And why should I think that?”

Shion smiled lightly, and Nezumi felt himself relaxing somewhat, felt the heat over his skin dissipating into warmth. “Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the one going on about how difficult it is to be apart from Rai. Am I supposed to be in favor of your heartbreak over another man?”

Shion’s smile grew. “You’re so dramatic,” he said, standing up and walking over to Nezumi, touching Nezumi’s braid briefly before looping his arms around Nezumi’s neck.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at him but uncrossed his arms so they were no longer between him and Shion.

“And to think, I even missed that about you, your silly drama. How stupid of me,” Shion said, tightening his arms until his chest was against Nezumi’s.

Nezumi wrapped his own arms loosely around Shion’s waist. It was incredible to have this, to get to hold him. “You are a very stupid man,” Nezumi said, over Shion’s shoulder, feeling Shion’s chin hook over his own shoulder. He squeezed Shion more tightly, had the strange urge to break him entirely, to break himself, to find a way to mix their bones and bodies so that Shion got some of his immortality, and Nezumi got some of Shion’s impermanence, and finally they could reach a balance.

Shion’s laugh came in a breath over his shoulder. “You’re squeezing me too tightly,” he whispered.

“Sorry,” Nezumi mumbled, releasing him, but Shion didn’t release him back.

He kept his arms around Nezumi’s neck, looser now so that he could step back and look up at Nezumi. He tilted his head, looked at Nezumi in that focused way of his. “You know I’ve never been happier in my life. Right?”

Nezumi clenched his jaw. Made himself relax. “Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

Nezumi examined Shion, could find no sign that he was lying, nodded. “Okay. I’ll trust you.”

“Good,” Shion said, and then he leaned closer and kissed Nezumi, just a brief kiss, a soft kiss, a barely-there kiss before he was gone again, his arms gone from Nezumi’s neck. He was already at the bedroom door, opening it, before Nezumi comprehended he’d even been kissed. “Make me something to eat, I’m starving.”

Shion was out the room then, but Nezumi didn’t follow him immediately. He touched his lips, gave himself a moment to acknowledge Shion’s kiss, then went to the kitchen, where Shion was at the coffee pot, complaining that no one had left him coffee.

Nezumi walked up to him while Shion was saying, “Safu said she left enough for both of us, did you drink my share? The least you could have done was—” and kissed him, Shion’s lips still open, his voice slipping into Nezumi’s mouth.

Nezumi did not kiss Shion briefly. He kissed him long enough to feel Shion’s fingers trickling around his neck, and then he leaned back.

“It’s been a while since we’ve done it, so maybe you’ve forgotten, but I don’t like being kissed unless I’m being kissed properly. Understood?” he asked, while Shion blinked up at him, his cheeks darkening.

“Understood,” he said back.

“Go sit down, I’ll make you some coffee.”

Shion grinned but did as he was told, and Nezumi set to making him coffee.

As he did so, Nezumi was struck with the strange wish to make Shion coffee every morning of his life. It should have been a simple thing to want, but it wasn’t even possible. He’d have to settle with making Shion coffee every morning of Shion’s life. It wouldn’t be nearly enough, but it was all Nezumi could have.

*

It was early afternoon when Nezumi heard Safu finally closing her laptop. He’d made omelets for Shion, himself, and Safu a few hours before—adding mushrooms to Safu’s portion since she was the only one who liked them—but she’d waved her hand at the plate Nezumi offered her, insisting she had to finish working before she ate.

She was as bad as Shion, Nezumi realized, when it came to keeping herself fed. But after the close of her laptop, Nezumi could hear her shuffling around the kitchen. He hoped she was heating up her omelets on the stove to finally eat and confirmed this theory when Safu appeared in the living room a minute later holding a plate.

Nezumi and Shion were on the couch playing cards. Shion had cancelled his classes on Nezumi’s insistence, though he hadn’t had to insist too hard before Shion gave in.

“What are you playing?” Safu asked, sitting on the floor with her back against the coffee table and resting her plate on her knees.

“Go fish,” Shion said.

“An incredibly stupid game. Have you got any twos?” Nezumi asked.

“Go fish,” Shion said, smiling.

Nezumi frowned and took a card from the deck.

“I was wondering what you guys were planning on doing in terms of living situation. Are you moving back here? You’re welcome to,” Safu said.

Nezumi glanced at her, then Shion. “I figured that’s what we’d do. For now, at least, right?”

Shion was rearranging the cards in his hand. “Yeah, if that’s okay with you, Safu. I’ve got to move my stuff out of Rai’s and my place. Our lease is yearly, we’ve got it until December. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Well, you’re not paying me rent, so if you have to keep paying for your other place, it should be okay,” Safu hedged.

“What did Rai say?” Nezumi asked.

Shion glanced at him. “We didn’t talk about the apartment. I mean, I told him I’d move out, of course, but that’s it. We didn’t get into semantics. Maybe we could sublet, but then Rai would have to find somewhere else.” Shion sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to talk again.”

“Was he mad?” Safu asked, holding her hand over her mouth, Nezumi assumed because she was chewing.

“A little,” Shion mumbled.

“Did he yell at you?” Nezumi asked.

Shion narrowed his eyes. “You do remember you hit me in the face, right? So don’t get all protective that Rai was upset when I did exactly what I promised him over and over again for two and a half years I’d never do to him.”

Nezumi raised his hands. “I’m not protective! I was asking a question.”

Shion’s expression softened, but just barely. “Mostly, he was sad. It was horrible.”

“Did he cry?” Safu asked.

“Safu,” Shion warned.

“I understand if you don’t want to tell Nezumi, but you have to tell me. I’m your best friend. I want all the details. Nezumi, go stand outside so Shion can tell me exactly what words were said.”

“There is nothing I want to do less than relive last night,” Shion said dryly.

Shion sat against one side of the couch, and Nezumi sat in the middle cushion, cross legged like Shion. Nezumi unfolded his legs, careful not to topple the deck on the couch cushion, and tapped Shion’s knee with his foot. “It’s over now.”

“It’s not over. I have to deal with our apartment, and all our things, things we bought together. Ugh,” Shion groaned, dropping his cards and covering his face with his hands. “He was so betrayed. He was so—And he should be, I can’t believe I did this to him,” Shion moaned into his hands.

Nezumi picked up Shion’s cards, joined them with the deck along with his own cards and their piles of pairs on the floor beside the couch. When the deck was in a single pile again, he set it on the floor and shifted over the edge of the middle cushion until he was right in front of Shion. He pulled on Shion’s wrists, and Shion didn’t protest when Nezumi moved his hands away from over his face.

“Stop beating yourself up.”

“I should feel guilty. I am a terrible for what I did to him.”

“A real heartbreaker,” Safu piped up.

“You’re not helping,” Nezumi told her.

“Neither of you are helping! I don’t want to talk about Rai right now. What about you?” Shion asked, looking hard at Nezumi.

“What about me?”

“What are you doing with your apartment?”

Nezumi blinked at him. “I guess I’ll move my stuff here.”

“And then you’ll end your lease?” Shion asked.

Nezumi released Shion’s wrists. “Why not keep the place? It’s right across from your mother, we can spend the night there sometimes.”

“We’re a ten-minute Uber ride from my mom, and if we want to sleep closer to her for some reason, there’s always my bedroom in my mom’s apartment. Next excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse. I’m not making excuses—”

“As long as you have another apartment, I won’t believe you’re fully in this. That’s a safety net, it’s somewhere to go after you break up with me,” Shion protested.

“It’s somewhere to go when you die, actually,” Nezumi snapped back.

Shion’s anger fell from his face. Nezumi sighed, pushed his bangs out of his eyes.

“I’ve lived there for a century. I don’t really have a great emotional attachment to the place, but it’s familiar, it’s mine, I’d rather return there than have to find somewhere new when you, you know,” Nezumi gestured lamely, felt his shoulders slump.

Shion had his hands wrapped around his crossed ankles. “We’ll eventually move out of Safu’s, get our own place. And you can stay there after I, umm…”

“I’m not going to want to live there when you die, Shion.”

“Do we have to talk about this?” Shion asked weakly.

“You asked about my apartment, I’m telling you why I want to keep it. It’s not because I’m going to break up with you. I don’t want a safety net. You know that now, it’s not like that now, I can’t keep reassuring you about this. I get you’d have doubts based off the past, but I’m telling you it’s different now. I got a tattoo, a brand of you forever on my skin, to prove that to you. I need you to trust me.”

Shion nodded. “I do.”

“Then let me keep my place.”

Shion bit his bottom lip, then looked at Safu, whom Nezumi had forgotten was sitting on the floor beside the couch.

“You’re okay with us moving in here? Temporarily?”

“I just offered it, didn’t I?” Safu asked, spearing her last mushroom with her fork. “Try to keep the feelings talks to a minimum though, I’m already getting exhausted by them.”

Shion exhaled hard. “Okay. That’s settled then, we’re moving here for now. I might as well call Rai, sort out when it’s all right with him for me to get my stuff.”

“Do you need help? How much stuff do you have?” Nezumi asked.

Shion eyed him for a moment, then shook his head. “Safu can help me, right?”

“It’s not like I have a job or anything. My life revolves around you both,” Safu replied, but as she stood up with her empty plate, she nudged Shion’s shoulder. “Yes, I’ll help you, idiot. My afternoon’s free today, if that works with Rai. Although it’s your apartment too, so I don’t see why you need to ask him to show up there.”

“After what I did to him, I’m not just going to show up without giving him notice. I’ll call him now, he should be out of school,” Shion said, unraveling his crossed legs and standing up.

Nezumi stood up as well, followed Safu into the kitchen while Shion left the apartment to make his call.

“Thanks for letting us move in here,” he told her, grabbing the empty pan from the stove and the spatula to wash.

“I told you a long time ago this was your place too.”

Nezumi nodded, set to washing the dishes, handing them to Safu to dry. He’d finished the dishes and was watching Safu rub a dishtowel in circles over the pan when the front door opened.

“That was quick,” Safu said, when Shion walked into the kitchen.

“He told me I should wait a little before moving all my stuff out,” Shion said, pushing his fingers through his hair.

Nezumi said nothing, taking in Shion’s somber expression.

“Are you going to wait?” Safu asked.

“No. And I told him that, and he said it didn’t matter to him when I came over. So let’s just go now. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready, but you should probably put on pants,” Safu said, and Shion looked down at himself, still wearing only boxers and a t-shirt.

“Oh.”

Nezumi followed Shion back to their bedroom, standing in the doorway while Shion pulled a pair of Nezumi’s jeans from the dresser.

Shion jumped after pulling on the jeans and looking up at Nezumi. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, hand on his heart.

“I know you’ve said this is what you want. But if you don’t, if it’s not—”

“What are you talking about?” Shion walked up to Nezumi, stood in front of him.

“You should fold the bottom of those jeans, they’re dragging,” Nezumi told him, then crouched down himself, kneeled to fold Shion’s left cuff, then his right.

“Nezumi.”

Nezumi looked up at him, still on his knees. He remembered the last time he’d been on his knees in front of Shion—could it really have been just the day before?

“You’re sad. You don’t want to break up with him. That’s okay. You don’t owe me your life, Shion. You never owed me anything.”

Shion looked down at him, then crouched down in front of him. “I’m not sad because I broke up with Rai. I really hurt Rai, and I don’t like that, and no matter how much I love you, no matter how happy I am to be with you, I hate that I had to hurt someone, especially someone I care about, in order to have a life with you. But if that’s the cost of having you, I’d do it over and over again. I’d do anything to love you.”

Nezumi watched Shion carefully. “You’re torn up over this. It’s got to mean something.”

“Do you want me to not give a shit that I’ve broken someone’s heart? Should I not feel a little guilty for that?” Shion asked.

Nezumi clenched and unclenched his hands over his knees, then made himself admit his own thoughts. “I don’t want Rai to make you feel anything. Not anymore.”

Shion stared at him.

“What?” Nezumi asked, defensive, as Shion just kept staring. “You said I should tell you how I’m feeling, that’s what you wanted when we dated before, right? So I’m doing that. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Sometimes I worry I love you so much it’ll kill me,” Shion said, a bit breathily. 

Nezumi crossed his arms over his chest. “I shouldn’t have let you rehearse Shakespeare with me when you were a kid. It’s messed you up.”

“I’m serious.”

“Die then, go ahead. So ridiculous,” Nezumi muttered, pushing himself up off Shion’s floor.

Shion clambered up after him. “I know I shouldn’t want you to be jealous. But I can’t help but like it a little. You should give me some warning before you say things like that, I think my heart stopped for a moment.”

“Like what?” Nezumi snapped, heading out the bedroom. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t want Rai to make me feel anything anymore,” Shion said, following him.

“So? Why would I want that? Stop being annoying, I’m going to my place to get my stuff, but I’ll change my mind if you keep this up.”

“You’re flustered,” Shion said.

“You’ve done it, I’ve changed my mind. Tell Rai he can have you back.”

“Hey.” Shion caught Nezumi’s arm just as Nezumi got the kitchen, where Safu was now absent.

Nezumi turned around, surprised by Shion’s grip.

“You can’t joke about Rai. Not like that. He’s a good person, and he doesn’t deserve any of this, and I don’t want you to be flippant about his feelings. My relationship with him isn’t a secret from you, and you can ask about him if you want, I’m not going to hide anything from you. But you can’t be a jerk about it.”

“How am I being a jerk?” Nezumi asked, pulling his arm free.

“I’m serious, Nezumi. Don’t joke about him, he’s not a punchline. He was an important person in my life,” Shion said warningly.

Nezumi sighed. “Yeah, okay. Fine. But cut down the wallowing in your guilt, all right? It’s not my favorite thing to see him affecting you so much. Is that fair?”

Shion looked at him, the nodded back. “That’s fair. And I appreciate you telling me that, you know. Before you would have just brooded silently and expected me to read your mind.”

Nezumi glared at him.

“That was a compliment!” Shion said.

“Are you ready?” Safu asked, appearing out the hallway.

“We can walk you to the train station, it’s on the way to our place,” Shion said to Nezumi, who went to the door to put on his boots.

Shion followed, leaning on Nezumi when he lost his balance putting on his tennis shoes, and then they were outside, heading to the train station.

“I’ll tell your mom. Or do you want to tell her together?” Nezumi asked him.

“Are you going by the bakery?”

“I’ll get there around the time the bakery closes, I might as well help out, then I’ll get my stuff.” 

“You can tell her,” Shion said, sounding hesitant.

“It won’t be like last time,” Safu said. “Karan’s pro-Nezumi these days.”

“Maybe.” Shion didn’t sound convinced, but Nezumi knew Safu was right. Karan had been against the idea before, when both she and Nezumi knew any relationship Nezumi had with Shion would be temporary.

But now it was different. Now everything was different.

*

Nezumi got to the bakery just after close. He let himself in and headed to the back, where Karan was washing dishes.

“Let me take over,” he said, and she jumped, dropping the mixing bowl she’d been rinsing.

“When did you get here?” 

“A minute ago. I’ve got this.” Nezumi nudged Karan gently out of the way and took over washing, though she’d nearly finished.

“Are you going to fill me in?”

Nezumi finished rinsing off the mixing bowl, picked up a spoon with bits of dough still stuck to it. “We’ll live at Safu’s like we did before. I’m taking my clothes over there after this.”

“So your tattoo worked.”

Nezumi didn’t respond, even when Karan elbowed his side.

“I’m happy for you, hon. You’ll do it right this time.”

Nezumi nodded at the spoon, now dough-free. He let the faucet wash off the last few suds that clung to it, then placed it on the drying rack and turned off the sink.

“And yet you’re not dancing around the kitchen. Why not?”

Nezumi glanced at her, caught Karan’s smile, wasn’t able to return it. “He planned a whole life with Rai. And he gave it up.”

“And you’re worried you’re not worth it?” Karan asked.

Nezumi focused on washing out a dishtowel to wipe down the counters with it. He wrung out the extra soap and water and set to wiping, glad for the reason not to look at Karan. “Don’t tell me how great I am, Karan. We both know that’s bullshit. I’m not good enough for your son. No one is, but Rai came about as close to perfect as anyone’s got a chance to.”

Karan said nothing while Nezumi finished the counter around the sink. He was putting away the supplies left out on the island counter when Karan said, “Shion’s pretty smart, don’t you think?”

Nezumi paused in rolling down the top of a bag of confectioner’s sugar. “So?” he asked, when Karan said nothing else.

“So I think he’s smart enough to know what he wants. He doesn’t need you second guessing him or worrying about his well-being.”

Nezumi resumed rolling the top of the confectioner’s sugar bag. “He’s a genius when it comes to science, math, all that. He’s not great when it comes to taking care of himself.”

“Nezumi, honey, listen to me,” Karan said, reaching out and putting her hand over Nezumi’s before he could close the lid on a container of raisins. “You’re not used to having what you want, so I don’t think you know what to do with it, so I’ll tell you the secret. Don’t push it away. Stop doubting your right to happiness. You’ve had so much tragedy in your life, there’s no need to fashion your own when you have a chance at something good. Right?”

Nezumi sighed. “I was happy this morning.”

“It can last longer than a morning.”

“Can it?” Nezumi muttered, and Karan’s hand slipped off his.

“Only if you let it,” Karan replied.

*

When Nezumi got to Safu’s apartment with a duffel bag and suitcase—borrowed from Karan—filled with his clothing, toiletries, books, and a bottle of sake he didn’t want to let go to waste in his fridge, Safu and Shion were not there. He was surprised by this—he’d helped Karan finish closing the bakery, and then she’d helped him pack his few possessions, but the process had taken longer than expected as he’d thoroughly cleaned his apartment afterward, figuring he wouldn’t be back in a while. He gave Karan the contents of his fridge, freezer, and pantry she would use—the just-bought half gallon of milk, an open jar of peanut butter, a box of crackers, two gala apples, two cans of chicken noodle soup, a carton with three eggs remaining, and his seasonings. He never had much food in his apartment, preferring to eat at the bakery or Safu’s, so it wasn’t difficult. He left his own pots and pans and kitchen supplies, knowing Safu’s kitchen was stocked, and there was little else he owned outside of the cleaning supplies that he left as well.

The process had taken time only because he’d taken several breaks with Karan to drink tea and reminisce on the years when Karan had first moved into the apartment and they’d gotten to know each other as neighbors before getting to know each other as friends. Karan was tearful when she hugged Nezumi in the hallway, and he had to remind her that he’d see her just as often in the bakery, that nothing was changing, really.

“But you won’t live across the hall anymore,” she insisted, as if it made a difference, and maybe it did, Nezumi wasn’t entirely sure.

There was, he had to admit, something different in bringing his stuff to Safu’s now than there had been the last time he’d moved into her apartment. Before, it’d been temporary. He knew he’d be moving right back out when he broke up with Shion. But now there’d be no breaking up with Shion. Now, the end of their relationship would come with his death, and that was such a startling thing to contemplate that Nezumi shoved it out of his mind the first time it occurred to him.

At Safu’s, Nezumi set to unpacking. He took the same drawers of the dresser that he had the year he had lived with Shion at Safu’s previously, and he arranged his toiletries in the bathroom just as he had before as well. What took the most time was figuring out where to put his books. Shion had taken his books when he’d moved out with Rai, so there were holes in the bookshelves now, and Nezumi filled some of them with his own books, but he left some holes for Shion and created his own stacks on the floor against the walls.

He’d finished his unpacking at around the same time the Thursday afternoon rehearsal he was skipping ended. He settled on the couch with _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ and was just turning to the last page when he heard the key turning in the front door.

Nezumi sat up, peering above the couch back to see the front door opening and Safu walking in with a box in her hands.

“Come downstairs with me,” she said breathlessly, dropping the box on the floor, and it thumped much more loudly than Nezumi had expected. “We had to take an Uber, he’s got a million boxes of books. He’s standing with them all down there.”

“Why didn’t you just text me to come down?” Nezumi asked, standing up and going to the front door. He pulled on his boots, taking in Safu’s sweaty hairline.

“Oh, right. That didn’t occur to us.”

Nezumi followed Safu to the elevator, which she insisted they take.

“I haven’t got energy for stairs,” she said, as the elevator doors opened.

“How much stuff has he got?”

“It’s all books! He’s crazy!”

“Was Rai there?” Nezumi asked, pressing the button for the lobby after Safu followed him into the elevator and collapsed against the side of it.

Safu took out her short ponytail and retied it. “Yeah. It was brutal, actually, you could tell he’d been crying nonstop, his face was even swollen from it. He cried when we were there, too. He kept telling Shion there was no need to move all his books out at once, that he could come back for them later, but Shion was really insistent. He was barely holding it together there, he started crying too while Rai begged him to reconsider. I nearly started crying myself, it was honestly really sad. Poor Rai.”

“I don’t think I need any more details,” Nezumi said dryly, as they got to the lobby.

“You asked,” Safu said, leading them through the lobby and outside. Shion was on the curb, sitting on a box and surrounded by several others, along with two suitcases, a backpack, and a duffel.

Nezumi could see that Shion had cried. His eyes were ringed with red, but otherwise, he looked composed, exhausted more than anything.

“Hi,” Shion said, standing up when Nezumi got to him. “I just needed a moment, but I’m ready to lift again, so Safu can stay with the boxes while you and I carry them up—”

Shion stopped talking abruptly when Nezumi hugged him. He stood rather still, seeming shocked.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“I’m hugging you.”

“Well, yes,” Shion said weakly, and then he relaxed into Nezumi’s chest and squeezed him back.

“I’m sorry that was hard,” Nezumi told him, releasing him only after Shion’s grip loosened enough for him to do so.

Shion bit his lip. “Yeah. Thanks. It’s okay.”

“Let’s get those boxes. You know libraries exist, right? I know I’ve taken you to a few,” Nezumi said, crouching to pick up a box and wincing as he stood. “Christ, Shion.”

“I know, I just like having books around me,” Shion muttered. “Actually, I think they always reminded me of you. But now I have you. So maybe I should donate these.”

Safu swiped their keycard to let them back into the building and held the door for them.

“Oh no, you’re not donating these once we carry them up. I’m not carrying anything back down,” Nezumi warned, leading Shion through the lobby.

“Did you already move all your stuff?”

“Yes. Unlike you, I don’t own a library, so it was much simpler.”

“I hope you left room on the bookshelves for me.” 

“I did, Your Majesty. Not enough for all this, obviously, we’ll have to crowd our room with them again. What a pain, I was getting used to having bruise-free shins.”

“When we get a new place, we’ll have to make sure it has a lot of bookshelves. Maybe we can try to get one of those secret doors that open when you play a certain chord on the piano, you know, like in the movies?” Shion asked, leaning against the side of the elevator, standing on one leg and bending the other so he could rest his box on his thigh.

Even though his eyes were ringed in red, he still had his stupid childish grin, the one he’d always had since he was six years old.

“Maybe,” Nezumi agreed, just to watch the grin widen, unchanged. He hoped no matter how old Shion got, this one thing would always stay the same.

* 


	29. Chapter 29

“You know, I’m the same age my mom was when she moved into your building,” Shion said, a week after he and Nezumi had moved into Safu’s apartment. “Twenty-seven.”

Nezumi hummed noncommittedly, not caring to discuss Shion’s changing age, but Shion, as usual, did not get the hint.

“That’s weird, don’t you think? Sort of like a coincidence. We finally get together when I’m the same age my mom was when we met.”

“That’s not what a coincidence is,” Nezumi said, opening the fridge door and picking up a gallon of skim milk, which was all Safu and Shion drank, so Nezumi had been forcing himself to get used to it as well. Their fridge did not have room for more than one gallon of milk at a time.

Nezumi put the gallon in the cart and pulled the end of it to wheel it around, even though technically Shion was supposed to be pushing it, but Nezumi didn’t have the patience for Shion’s pace. He’d decided not five minutes into the trip that this was the last time he’d ever let the man come grocery shopping with him again.

“It is a little bit,” Shion said, while Nezumi glanced at his phone to see if Safu had texted him any last-minute additions to the list they’d written up.

He had a new message from her, opened it while Shion rambled about something else. _Miso paste! GET MARUKOME it’s the tastiest one I don’t care that the store brand is cheaper I’ll return it if you get the store brand Nezumi._

So Nezumi pulled the cart by its front back toward the middle aisles while Shion still held the handle, uselessly of course, drifting along and babbling about the definition of coincidence.

“Why are we here? Milk was last on the list,” Shion said, only when they were in the aisle and Nezumi was examining the bottles of miso.

“Safu texted we need miso.”

“Oh. Maybe you could teach me how to cook.”

Nezumi had been comparing prices of Marukome miso and the store brand but stopped to look at Shion. “You know how to cook.”

“Not really. Not like you, anyway. Your stuff always tastes better than mine.”

“That’s because you don’t properly season anything. You cook only for fuel so you can work more. I cook for flavor.”

“I don’t know how to cook with flavor, that’s why I’m saying you could teach me,” Shion said.

Nezumi looked at him another moment, then turned back to the miso and grabbed the Marukome. “Okay, I’ll teach you.”

They were at the self-check-out when Shion paused instead of handing Nezumi the bottle of shoyu. “My semester ends at the end of May.”

“And?” Nezumi asked, having to stretch to take the shoyu from Shion and scan it.

“It’s mid-April. So the end of May is coming up soon. And then I was thinking we could do something.”

“Do what?”

“Go on vacation.”

Nezumi carefully packed the shoyu bottle between a box of cereal and a bag of broccoli, not trusting Shion not to swing the bags around and break the glass.

“We’ve never gone on vacation. Don’t you think that’s strange? I’ve never been out of Japan. Have you?” Shion said, talking more quickly than seemed normal.

“No.”

“You haven’t been out of Japan after being alive for a hundred twenty-nine years?”

“Why would I leave Japan?” Nezumi asked, finishing scanning their items—without Shion’s help, of course—and sticking his card in the machine to pay.

“We could go to America,” Shion said, after such a long pause Nezumi had figured the strange conversation was over.

“Are you crazy?”

“Why is that crazy?”

“It’s certainly out of nowhere.”

Shion bit his lip, and Nezumi watched him suspiciously, but then the machine was spitting out their receipt, so Nezumi took it, grabbed their bags, and left Shion to push the empty cart behind him to the cart area.

Shion took half the bags from Nezumi, and they walked beside each other. It must have rained briefly while they were shopping, as the sidewalk was wet and the air heavy.

“Rai and I might have been planning a trip to America. To New York.”

Nezumi gave himself a moment to absorb this information.

“The thing is, we bought plane tickets already. And they’re nonrefundable. So I have roundtrip tickets to New York for two weeks in the middle of June.”

“And so does Rai,” Nezumi said, glancing at Shion, who was staring at him.

“Yes. That’s true.”

“What’s your plan here? I buy the ticket from Rai and we go on the same vacation the two of you planned together?”

“It’s not an ideal situation, but the tickets will just go to waste then, and what’s the point of that?” Shion protested weakly.

“You have to realize it’s incredibly messed up for you even to suggest this,” Nezumi said, incredulous.

“I know!” Shion said, his voice strained, and then he nearly tripped on the sidewalk.

“Watch where you’re going, Your Majesty,” Nezumi sighed, watching Shion straighten himself out and check his bags of groceries.

“Do you have the eggs or do I?”

“Did you think I’d give you the eggs knowing what a klutz you are?”

Shion glanced at him. “I’m sorry I suggested it. I know it’s a terrible idea. I’ll ask Rai if he wants my ticket. I should just give it to him, I’m not going to make him buy it, the fact that our trip is cancelled is on me.”

“How much was the ticket?” Nezumi asked, when they stopped at a crosswalk. The grocery store was only a few blocks from their building; they were already halfway home.

“None of your business,” Shion said stiffly.

“I imagine it was expensive. An expensive thing to give away.”

“I ruined his life, Nezumi.” 

“And you think bribing him with a ticket to America when he has no one to take with him will make up for that?”

Shion swung one of his grocery bags so it hit Nezumi in the leg.

“Ow! Dammit, I think you got my shin bone with the bottle of vinegar.”

Shion didn’t reply, already striding across the crosswalk, and Nezumi realized the light had changed.

He walked quickly to catch up, then fell back into stride with Shion. “Okay, you were right to hit me with the vinegar, we’re even now, so stop sulking.”

“Then stop being an asshole.”

“Then stop suggesting I go on the romantic getaway you planned with your ex,” Nezumi countered, and Shion glanced at him again before Nezumi pointed with the finger free from the handles of his bags. “Watch the sidewalk, I don’t need you tripping on your face this time.”

Shion looked ahead again and said nothing else until after they got to their building. They stood in the elevator, Nezumi shifting the bags in his hands, wondering if the circulation in the fingers of his right hand—the hand holding the bag with the gallon of milk, amongst other things—had cut off.

“I could take Safu,” Shion mused.

“If you’re going on a romantic getaway to America, you’re not taking Safu.” 

“You don’t want to come.”

“Why on earth would you think Rai would even sell me his ticket?”

“He doesn’t hate you, you know. If anything, he hates me, except he doesn’t even hate me, really, he’s too nice to hate anyone,” Shion said, as the elevator doors opened on their floor.

Shion got out first, and Nezumi followed him, looking up at the chandelier in their hallway as he always did when they passed under it.

“I think you’re right. You should just give him your ticket,” Nezumi said, once Shion had let them into their apartment and Nezumi placed his bags on the kitchen counter, flexing his fingers to regain feeling in them.

“Yeah,” Shion said quietly. As they set to unpacking the groceries, Shion changed the subject to what they might make for dinner, and Nezumi let him.

*

Nezumi thought he remembered what sex was like with Shion, but he hadn’t, really. It was almost too overwhelming, the pleasure Shion would inflict on him, the way his body would react to Shion’s touch. On a Wednesday night, two weeks after they’d been living together, Nezumi almost passed out from his climax, which was incredibly embarrassing and only made more so due to Shion’s amusement.

“I wish I had a juicebox to give you like I used to at the lab when you donated blood and got dizzy from it,” Shion said, while Nezumi laid still, his body still coursing from the aftershocks of his climax.

When he sat up, he felt the same swooping in his head that he did when he was on drugs and forgot to eat for days. “Shut up,” he muttered, skin hot and prickling, all of him exhausted and wrung out and overheated and pulsing. He pushed himself with his hands on the mattress until his back was against the bedframe and glared at Shion, who sat beside him, grinning.

“Speaking of, you should come in to the lab tomorrow, do you have time?”

“Why?” Nezumi asked, collected his sweat-matted hair off his neck and forehead.

“I want to start working on your cure again. I’ve had a long enough break, maybe starting again with fresh eyes will help me come up with whatever I was missing before.”

“Don’t start that again,” Nezumi said, too lazy to tie a proper ponytail and just tying his hair into a low ponytail that fell over his shoulder.

“It’s not up to you,” Shion said simply, scooching over and leaning against the headboard beside Nezumi.

“It is up to me, seeing as you need my DNA.”

“If you won’t give me blood, I’ll just pluck out your hair when you’re asleep.”

Nezumi crinkled his nose, and Shion laughed. “Fine, I’ll come to your lab tomorrow.”

“Come after three if you can. Do you have rehearsal?”

“Morning rehearsal.” Nezumi tipped his head against the headboard and closed his eyes, starting to feel normal again—or, at least, able to stand, which a minute ago he didn’t think he was capable of. “I think I might take another shower. I’m covered in sweat.”

“Before you do that, I meant to tell you. I called Rai today. He doesn’t want my plane ticket. He doesn’t want his own either. He said he’d give it to me.”

Nezumi opened his eyes and glanced at Shion, who watched him back. His own hair was wet from sweat at his hairline. “He knows you’ll give it to me.”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s fine with that?”

Shion shrugged. “Are you fine with going on a vacation I planned with Rai? I’m thinking I can call the airline, see if they can change our destination. We didn’t book a hotel or anything. Is there anywhere you want to go?”

Nezumi strung his fingers through his bangs to pull them off his face. They were completely soaked and stuck when he pushed them to the top of his head. “Was it your idea to go to New York or his?”

“His. His little sister lives there,” Shion said, and Nezumi vaguely remembered that he’d known that, though he wasn’t sure how. “I don’t mind the idea of America, though. Maybe the Grand Canyon? Or Hawaii?”

“We have beaches in Japan. And I don’t care about orange rocks.”

“Well, where do you want to go? I can’t believe you’ve never even left Japan in all your life. There must be somewhere that interests you.”

“If there was somewhere that interested me, I would have gone,” Nezumi said.

“What about the biggest library in the world? It’s in Washington, DC.”

“Are they all political books?”

“I don’t think so,” Shion hedged, but he didn’t sound completely sure. “What about somewhere with mountains? Or somewhere we can go scuba diving? Have you ever gone scuba diving? Or we could go see Machu Picchu. Or I was just reading that there are some great hot springs in Thailand. Oh, and did you know there’s this thing called the Spotted Lake somewhere in Canada? It’s supposed to look really cool, and it happens in the summer, so it’d be perfect. And there’s always Italy, we could try to get Rome, Venice, and Florence all at once. But of course, we can’t forget Paris.”

“Slow down, Your Majesty,” Nezumi cut in, laughing, as Shion had, in his enthusiasm, climbed on top of Nezumi’s legs to straddle him as he listed off his dream destinations. “I don’t even have a passport.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. My ID isn’t even real.”

Shion frowned. “Right. I forgot about that. We could get you a passport.”

“I don’t have any official documents. I don’t even know my real birthday.”

“But everyone knows who you are, it shouldn’t be impossible. You’re Eternal Eve, you’re famous.”

“I don’t think I can just go to the passport people and tell them that,” Nezumi pointed out. He could see Shion’s happiness falter and hated this. He didn’t care about travelling, but if Shion did, Nezumi wasn’t about to be the reason he had to sacrifice this want. “We can try, though. Who knows, the passport people might take pity on me.”

“There’s beautiful places in Japan, too,” Shion offered.

Nezumi wrapped his arms around Shion’s waist, pulled him closer over his thighs. “If you want to go scuba diving in a spotted lake, I’m going to make that happen. Okay?”

Shion’s smiled lightly. “I don’t think you go scuba diving in the Spotted Lake, it’s probably too shallow. The reason it’s spotted is because of evaporated water. And it’s a lake. Nobody scuba dives in lakes.”

“I just said I’d make it happen, weren’t you listening?” Nezumi asked, and Shion laughed, tipped his head forward against the side of Nezumi’s neck.

“You’re so dumb,” he murmured, and Nezumi could tell from his voice he was still grinning.

Nezumi slipped his fingers up the nape of Shion’s neck and wove them through Shion’s hair. He rested his cheek against the side of Shion’s head. “Dumb but determined. Anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you. Got it?”

“Got it,” Shion said softly.

Nezumi tightened his fingers in Shion’s hair, only gently, only to make sure the man in his arms was real, not a dream, not something he would wake up from, not someone that would vanish.

*

The paperwork to become an officially documented person, as a person without any official documents, was incredibly difficult. It was even more difficult because Nezumi didn’t know his family name. He recalled his given name, which wasn’t Nezumi, but just that wasn’t enough to track down a kid whose entire village went up in flames in the early 1900s. It helped that the fire that destroyed Nezumi’s family was somewhat of a historic event in Japan, and Nezumi’s own survival as Eternal Eve was relatively popularized, but these facts were not as good as, say, a birth certificate or form of identification that hadn’t been forged by a member of his cast at the theater.

But after five weeks of dealing with several of the different ministries of Japan, Nezumi was given a new ID. He knew the year he was born, and the same birthdate listed on his fake ID—January 1—was listed on his new ID. He had to take the Japanese nationality test, which Shion helped him study for, seeming to have much too much fun doing so and making up about a hundred flashcards that he quizzed Nezumi with even when Nezumi was in the shower.

Shion’s studying zeal worked. Nezumi had never been a good test-taker, but he passed his nationality test and became an official citizen of Japan. He used his given name, the name that no one had called him in over a hundred and twenty years, as his family name, and he used Nezumi as his first name.

The first person he showed his ID to was Shion, who took it and examined it and pointed at the name Nezumi hadn’t been called since he was a kid, a hundred twenty-one years before.

“Did you choose that or did the government choose that?”

“My parents chose it,” Nezumi replied.

Shion blinked at Nezumi for a moment, then handed back his ID, and Nezumi slipped it into his wallet behind his old ID that listed a year to make his age twenty-five—he preferred his fake ID to the new one, which gave his actual birth year and did nothing to hide his real age.

“The passport takes longer,” Nezumi told Shion. They were in his lab, Nezumi having met Shion there to let the man take his blood—the second time Nezumi was giving blood samples since Shion had started working on his cure again, though he’d given hair samples and semen samples more frequently in between the blood draws.

“How long?”

“I told them I’m trying to go on an international vacation with my boyfriend, so they said they’d expedite it,” Nezumi said, after Shion took the needle out his arm and placed a cotton ball over his elbow.

“Really?”

“Obviously not. They said it could take from a week to a month.”

“The plane tickets are for the second week of June.”

“I know.”

“It’s currently the last week of May.”

“I’m aware of the date.”

“I never know with you, half the time you cover your eyes when you pass by a calendar,” Shion said, taking the tray of Nezumi’s tubes of blood to the counter. He opened a cupboard above the counter and took out a juicebox, which he gave to Nezumi.

“Very funny,” Nezumi said, taking the juicebox and ripping free the straw.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter if we get it in time to use these tickets. We can just take a trip later,” Shion said, marking something on a folder.

“We can go on all the trips you want, Your Majesty,” Nezumi replied, after drinking his juicebox in one go, slipping off the examination table, and tossing his juicebox in the trash he knew by now was in the cabinet below the sink.

He could feel Shion looking at him and looked back to see the man staring. “What?”

“You said that so casually.”

“Is that not the appropriate tone? Should I have been more formal? I did call you Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, bemused.

“No, it just—it sounded like we were normal.”

Nezumi scrutinized Shion for a moment, then leaned closer, kissed him briefly before leaning back to tap on the folder he was writing on. “If you do your job right, we can be normal. Positive thinking yields positive results, isn’t that the new age bullshit everyone’s saying lately?”

Shion nodded, looking so serious Nezumi worried for a moment he was putting too much pressure on the man, but he knew it didn’t really matter whether he put pressure on Shion or not. He knew Shion would work as hard as he could—as anyone could—to find a way for Nezumi to die on time.

*

Nezumi didn’t get his passport until the end of June. Shion sold both his and Rai’s tickets half price to another professor and paid Rai the full-price back for his ticket.

So, finally, the trip-to-America ordeal was over, and on top of that, Shion and Rai figured out what they were doing with their apartment—they’d found a couple to sublet it until the end of their lease, and Rai had moved in temporarily with a fellow kindergarten teacher while he looked for a place of his own. Nezumi hoped all this meant Shion’s chapter of Rai was officially over and done with, all the loose ends finally tied.

But this hope was dashed on what felt like the hottest day of the year, some day in early July when the air conditioning unit in the bakery kitchen decided to stop working, and Nezumi was cursing over the frozen chocolate décor he’d meant to place on top of his cake. Instead of forming an intricate shard design meant to give a customer’s commissioned anniversary cake a dramatic and glamorous effect, the white and dark chocolate had melted and coated Nezumi’s hands, wrists, forearms—and even bits of his face, neck, and hair, somehow.

“Fuck, this is fucking impossible,” Nezumi snapped, wiping his hands on his apron, tempted to throw the entire cake in the trash.

Instead, he washed his hands free of melted chocolate and glared at the three-tier cake for a solid minute before deciding he’d have to decorate it in the front room, where the air conditioning unit was separate from the kitchen and still functioning.

He set to melting more chocolate, then re-casting it into the shapes he wanted. He preferred not to cool chocolate in the fridge, knowing it would lose its gloss, so he took his designs, laid out on baking sheets, up front.

It was a Saturday afternoon, so Karan had a good enough line, but she still turned to stare at him when he joined her behind the counter, looking for somewhere to set his chocolate.

“Oh, honey, look at you,” Karan said, laughing.

“The adornments melted all over me. The air conditioning people aren’t here yet, and I need to get this cake decorated. I’m doing it up here, the chocolate won’t set in the kitchen, and the icing comes out too runny to do flowers right.”

“If I move those bakery boxes to the floor, will that be enough counter space for you?” Karan asked, leaving the register to move the boxes that usually held large orders of cupcakes, muffins, or buns.

“Thanks, I think so. Go back to the line, I’ve got this,” Nezumi told her, setting the baking tray on the space she’d cleared.

He left the front to get the cake, and when he brought it back out, people in line leaned forward to watch as he took his second shot at decorating, every so often having to return to the kitchen to grab icing from the fridge or the bowl of berries he’d already cut into star shapes.

It was cooler in the front room, though mildly irritating to have to decorate his cake with people hovering on the other side of the counter to watch him. But it wasn’t long before he forgot they existed, too busy icing roses to pay attention to anything but the cake.

He remained in this trance until he’d finished everything he wanted but for the last touches—a delicate sheen of gold misted inside the rose petals and over his towering chocolate shards that he would spray on with the food color spray gun he’d bought the month before.

He had to go back to the kitchens to get it, and when he came back up front with it, Rai was standing in front of his cake.

Nezumi stopped a foot short of the counter. There was no line, and Karan was no longer behind the counter, but sitting at a table with a few regular customers, laughing with them.

Rai was bent, inspecting the cake, and hadn’t seen Nezumi yet. Nezumi could have backed up, returned to the kitchen, and he had a strong desire to do this. But he had ten minutes before the man who’d ordered the cake would come to pick it up, so he walked forward and stood behind the cake.

Rai glanced up from it. “Have you ever seen that show _The Great British Bake Off?”_ Rai asked, like it was a normal thing for him to ask Nezumi. “Safu had it on a lot, so I saw a few episodes when I lived at her apartment. Everyone makes these incredible baking masterpieces on that show, like intricate cakes like this. But honestly, with something like this you would win the competition easily. It’s a real work of art, the details on these flowers are breathtaking.”

Nezumi had seen the show. Safu loved it, and he’d watched it with her a few times as well. He didn’t point this out and didn’t know what to think about the fact that she’d watched it with Rai, too.

“It’s not done,” he said, having no idea what to say to Rai. He held up the spray gun, and Rai glanced at it.

“They use something like that on the show, too. Sprays some kind of food coloring, right?”

“The client’s coming in a few minutes. Mind if I finish?” Nezumi asked.

Rai gestured to the cake as if giving Nezumi permission to do what he wanted with it, so Nezumi readied his spray gun and attempted to concentrate, fully aware that Rai was watching him.

“If you don’t step back, the spray will get on your clothes,” he warned, and Rai stepped to the side.

Nezumi sprayed carefully, not wanting to make the roses he’d carefully gotten a deep red color totally gold, just wanting to gild the very centers of their petals. He worked slowly, spinning the cake inch by inch as he did so. Safu used to tell him, when they watched that British baking show, that he should apply for it, but Nezumi had no desire to enter a televised competition. He did not like to be watched while he baked. He preferred the privacy of Karan’s kitchen and hoped the air conditioning people would hurry their asses up.

Nezumi finished just as the client came in, and while the client showered praises on him— _My wife will be over the moon, holy shit! This is way cooler than I thought a cake could look like. You know, you could charge way more for something like this. I mean, not that I want you to charge more money, but that’s a modest price for this thing. People would spend like, I don’t know, a shitload of money on a thing like this—_ Nezumi boxed the cake and rung him up. He offered to help the man to his car, but the man insisted he got it, if only someone would hold the door open for him, which Rai—still there, inexplicably—offered.

While Rai opened the door for the guy, Nezumi returned to the kitchen. He was attempting to clean the melted chocolate from where it’d stuck all over the counter when there was a knock on the kitchen door.

Nezumi knew it was Rai. Karan didn’t knock, and obviously, Rai had not come all the way to the bakery just to watch him spray paint a cake and hold the door open for a stranger.

“Yeah, come in,” Nezumi said, pushing his bangs up from his forehead with his wrist and feeling something crusted to his skin. He touched his forehead while Rai came in. “I’ve got chocolate all over my face, don’t I?” he asked.

Rai pointed to his own face, gesturing to all of it. “A bit here and—well, all over, really.”

“Great.”

“It’s hot back here, isn’t it?”

“Air conditioning’s blown.”

“That’s why you were up front,” Rai said, nodding and looking around the kitchen, which was a mess from the frenzy of Nezumi’s frustrated baking.

Nezumi hoped Rai wouldn’t offer to help him clean it. He wanted Rai to spit out whatever he’d come here to say and get out. After he’d taken his decorating to the air-conditioned front room, Nezumi had been relaxed, as baking usually made him, but on seeing Rai he felt only tense. He wasn’t sure if Rai could tell. He had never been able to read the guy, to understand his expressions, and now was no exception.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Nezumi asked, when Rai continued to look around the bakery. 

Rai looked at him as if startled. “Oh, sorry. I was just remembering.”

Nezumi did not ask Rai what he was remembering. He did not care to know. He was aware that the heat prickling his skin was not just the broken air conditioning, but shame. He felt ashamed for having hurt this guy, this stupid Rai, and that was ridiculous, really, but Nezumi felt it nonetheless.

Nezumi exhaled slowly. He resisted the urge to pick the chocolate smears dried to his arm. He watched Rai and waited.

“I’m not here to yell at you or cause a scene,” Rai said. “I gave myself some time before coming to talk to you to make sure I wouldn’t do any of that. I don’t think this is your fault anyway. He loved you more.” Rai shrugged. “I knew that the whole time. Silly of me to let myself think he’d settle for less than you.”

Nezumi could feel sweat prickling underneath his arms. Just standing still in the kitchen was hot enough. It would have been great if the air conditioning people came right at this moment, forced whatever was happening with Rai to end.

Rai sighed heavily. He looked at Nezumi in an almost confused way, like he was the one waiting for Nezumi to spit out whatever he’d came here to say. “I just—I had to ask you—I’m not stupid, you know. I talked to Shion about you loads of times. I told him about my worries that he’d break up with me for you, and he assured me it wouldn’t happen because you’d never be able to give him a real relationship, the kind that he wanted, the kind that he’d feel secure in. He was so certain of that, that you couldn’t do that, that you’d never do it. And now—now, obviously, that’s all out the window, and I just have to know, I have to know if it’s all bullshit, you know? You get that, right?” 

Nezumi waited even after Rai trailed off and looked at Nezumi helplessly. He was certain Rai would say more, clarify what the hell he was even saying, but Rai didn’t say more.

“Rai, I have no idea what you’re asking me,” Nezumi said, after another moment of waiting, feeling a bit stupid.

Rai shook his head, dragged his hand over his face. “God. Sorry. Seeing you, it’s got me all—I thought I’d calmed down enough to talk to you, but honestly I feel like I really want to hit you, even though I know none of this is on you, but it’s just natural to want to deck you, you’ve got to understand that.”

“Sure, I understand that,” Nezumi said slowly.

Rai pushed his fingers through his hair. Even now, Nezumi couldn’t help but notice how good-looking he was. He wondered if Shion had noticed this every time he looked at the man.

Rai’s fingers dropped from his hair. “I guess what I really wanted to ask you is, are you going to break his heart? I mean, if you are, there’s no reason you’d tell me. I just had to ask. I just have to know. I know it sounds crazy, you probably think I’m pathetic, but I just have to know if this is really real, or if you just couldn’t help yourself, you just wanted him a little longer, but you won’t be able to commit, and then—and then—”

“And then you’ll be there to pick his pieces back up?” Nezumi asked, after Rai trailed off.

Rai opened his lips, then closed them, shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, exhaling hard around his voice. “Pathetic, like I said. But I can’t give up if there’s a chance. You’d understand that more than anyone. He’s the love of my life, just like he’s yours. How can I help that? How can I stop myself from feeling that? I’m sure you’ve tried, right? You know it’s a futile task. I don’t really care about self-respect. Who gives a shit about dignity if it’s going to stand in the way of the life I want? I need to know if I can still have a future with him once you’re done playing around with him. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’m asking.”

Nezumi looked away from Rai while he was talking. He could barely stand to look at the guy.

He was pathetic. But no more than Nezumi was, and Nezumi knew that acutely. He’d gotten on his knees and begged for Shion. He’d gotten a goddamn tattoo. He did drugs to distract himself from how lonely it felt to lose Shion. He got wasted after just seeing the way Shion smiled at Rai when they’d danced at his birthday party.

It really was ridiculous that Shion had so much power, and Nezumi almost laughed, but more than the absurdity he just felt shitty being in this kitchen with Rai. Having to hear Rai say these things, shove how pathetic they both were out into the open in front of them. Nezumi would have preferred to ignore it. To deny it.

Nezumi could have mocked Rai, but he had no desire to do that. He pitied the guy, and that was just as well—he knew Rai had pitied him for as long as Rai had been the one who had Shion.

“There’s no reason for you to believe me, but you should trust Shion. He wouldn’t have left you if he thought there was a chance I’d break up with him again. I get that it’s useless advice, but you should try to move on. I’m not going to give him up again.”

Rai seemed to be examining Nezumi as if gauging whether to believe him or not, but then he nodded. “Okay. That’s that, then, isn’t it? But—Can I ask—How did you convince him of this? After all the times you made promises before and broke them?”

Nezumi looked down at his arm. He wore a t-shirt, but with the amount of chocolate splattered all over him, the bits of his tattoo that were visible were hardly noticeable as a tattoo, looked like just more icing.

Nezumi raised the right sleeve of his t-shirt up onto his shoulder, watched Rai look at his arm.

“He made me get on my knees and beg for him, too, if that’s any consolation,” Nezumi offered, while Rai stared at his tattoo.

“Asters. I can see the effect of it. It must have blown him away. You’ll have that even after he dies. You’ll have that forever.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you think that was a little stupid? Hasty, even? Right now, it’s romantic, sure, but when he dies, it’s just a reminder of what you lost plastered on you for your entire life. Won’t that be a little torturous?” Rai asked.

Nezumi pulled his sleeve back down. “I don’t plan on surviving him by much.”

Rai nodded once, slowly. “I see. Very _Romeo and Juliet._ Well, Shion did say you like Shakespeare.”

Nezumi said nothing to this, and Rai took a step back. 

“Guess I’ll get going. I don’t have to tell you to treat him well, but just—Don’t fuck it up, Nezumi, you know? If you’re the one who gets a life with him, at least be happy. I don’t know if that’s possible for you. Shion mentioned that once, that you have an obsession with death, that it ruined your relationship the first time, that it’ll ruin any relationship you ever have. That’s what really convinced me, I think, that he’d stay with me over you.”

Nezumi’s jaw clenched too tightly for him to say anything, and then Rai was gone again.

Even when he was gone, Nezumi didn’t relax. He stayed where he was, tense and pulsing, his skin still hot, and really, it had nothing to do with the broken air conditioner.

*

Nezumi hadn’t intended on sharing with Shion Rai’s visit, and he didn’t. It was Shion who brought it up that night in bed while Shion Googled places they could go on vacation, and Nezumi gave Shion a foot rub.

“My mom said Rai was at the bakery today,” Shion said, not looking up from his laptop. He sat against the headrest, laptop on his lap, while Nezumi sat cross-legged at the edge of the bed, Shion’s feet in his own lap.

Nezumi had been pressing his thumbs into Shion’s arc in circles. He paused his pressing for only a moment before resuming. “He was,” Nezumi confirmed.

The screen of Shion’s laptop made Shion’s face glow. “What are your opinions on ziplining? In Belize, we could zipline right into a cave. That actually sounds a little terrifying.”

“Are you going to ask what Rai wanted?”

“I assumed you’re not going to tell me, since you didn’t, which is fine. Maybe it’s better I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to zipline into a cave,” Nezumi said, releasing Shion’s right foot and picking up his left.

“Scotland has some really beautiful castles. Are you against castles?”

“Will we have to zipline into them?”

“I think that would be amazing,” Shion said, then looked up from his laptop. “Are you really not going to tell me what Rai said?”

Nezumi had lifted up Shion’s foot and was examining what looked like a mosquito bite on his ankle, but he looked around Shion’s foot at Shion’s question. “You said you didn’t want to know.”

Shion frowned. “Well, I don’t. But I do at the same time. What did he say?”

“I’m not telling you, as you should have gathered since your mom was the one to tell you about Rai rather than me.”

Shion jerked his foot from Nezumi’s hand and tucked his legs beneath him, placing his laptop on the bed and crawling to sit in front of Nezumi. “Was he mad?” 

“The conversation between myself and Rai is private.”

“Did he threaten to kill you?”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you live with the man? I think you know him well enough to rule that option out.”

“You never know. Break ups can make people do crazy things,” Shion said, sounding completely serious. “I genuinely contemplated cutting your dick off the night before our one-year anniversary when I knew you were going to break up with me the next day.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not like I actually did it,” Shion said, defensive all of a sudden.

“Thanks for changing your mind, I appreciate it,” Nezumi said, and Shion smiled faintly, but his smile disappeared quickly.

He leaned forward, wrapped his hands around Nezumi’s crossed ankles. “Tell me what he said to you. I need to know.”

“Shion, I’m not telling you. I’m not here asking you to tell me every conversation you’ve had with Rai, am I?”

“Ask me anything you want! I told you, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I know it must be hard for you to know I’ve been so intimate and serious about someone else.”

Nezumi glared. “What I want is for you to talk less about him. Think you can manage that?”

Shion was sitting close enough that when he sighed, the breath of his exhale flickered the loose strands of Nezumi’s hair over his shoulders. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I don’t want to hide anything from you. None of my thoughts, none of what I feel, I’ll hide none of it from you. But I need the same from you.”

“I’m telling you how I feel, and how I feel is that Rai wanted to talk to me, and he could easily have come here to do so if he wanted you to know what he said. Be fair to him and stop asking.”

Shion groaned and released Nezumi’s ankles and dramatically fell back on the bed, his legs bent up in front of them so Nezumi had to take hold of Shion’s knees and part them in order to see Shion’s face.

He leaned forward between Shion’s thighs and rested his hands on either side of Shion’s waist to hover over him.

“Are you done being dramatic?”

“You’re right, you’re right. The curiosity will kill me though.”

“So that’s a no, you’re not done being dramatic.”

“Distract me and tell me where you want to go on vacation. You’re being extremely unhelpful.”

Nezumi leaned down lower, having to uncross his own legs before letting himself lie on top of Shion, who laughed, his chest shaking under Nezumi’s.

“You’re heavy!” he complained.

“I don’t care where we go on vacation.”

“See, that’s what I mean, that’s the definition of unhelpful. Just take a second to think about it, and then answer,” Shion said, reaching up and stringing his fingers through Nezumi’s hair.

Nezumi had left his hair down, and he was getting hot from it. He was contemplating getting a haircut, something drastic like above his shoulders, but he wasn’t sure what Shion would think about it. He didn’t want to ask in case Shion was all for it, and then Nezumi would have no choice but to cut it.

“Okay, let me think about it,” Nezumi said, and he tried to think, but it was hard to do with Shion playing with his hair.

He was still trying to think when Shion tugged a hunk of his hair. “You’re taking a long time.”

“The world is a big place. How do people choose?” Nezumi said, lowering himself over Shion and resting his cheek on Shion’s shoulder.

“So heavy,” Shion groaned. “How about I give you categories to help narrow it down? There’s beachy places, historic places, romantic places, mountainous places, ziplining places—”

Nezumi laughed, cutting off Shion’s voice. He propped himself up onto his elbows to look at him properly. “I want the official traveling categories, not that nonsense.”

“Those are the official travelling categories! And don’t forget scuba diving places,” Shion said, grinning his stupid childish grin, and Nezumi reached down, traced Shion’s lips with his finger.

“Let’s go scuba diving then,” he said.

“Really?” Shion asked, sounding so ridiculously excited about the prospect that Nezumi decided it wasn’t a joke, he’d really go scuba diving with this man, this completely idiotic man.

“Yeah. Find the best scuba diving place, and we’ll book tickets.”

Shion lifted his head off the bed. “Are you serious, Nezumi?”

Nezumi laughed again. “Yes, I’m serious.”

“You can’t just scuba dive, you have to take a class where they teach you how to breathe,” Shion said, almost warningly.

“Even better, I’ve always thought my breathing could use work.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not joking, I want to go scuba diving with you,” Nezumi insisted, unable to stop himself from laughing again at Shion’s serious expression.

“Don’t lie to me,” Shion said.

Nezumi pressed his face into Shion’s chest to stop Shion from seeing him laugh anymore. It still felt strange to laugh so often, even though he did it all the time now, like when he was teaching Shion how to make sushi and Shion burned three pots of rice in a row, or after Safu bought a karaoke machine and did a dramatic rendition of “Yuki no Hana,” or when they all got drunk and Safu insisted they help Nezumi practice for his upcoming auditions, which entailed putting on a drunken rendition of _Moulin Rouge_ in their living room. He laughed in small moments, too, for no reason it seemed to him but that he couldn’t help himself, and at first Shion would point it out to him, would say, _I love when you laugh_ , but now he’d stopped as if he’d gotten used to it, as if it was simply normal.

Nezumi wasn’t used to it. It wasn’t his normal, to feel like this, so constantly happy he was brimming with it and it burst out of him when he couldn’t help it. None of this was normal. It was a sliver of his life, a fraction of time. It was startling to him to think he could have lived his entire life like this. He wondered if he could have lived a hundred and twenty-nine years feeling this happy, but that was a terrifying thought, that he’d wasted so many years hating time when now all he wanted was more of it, more with this man, more and more.

“Have you fallen asleep on me? Why have you gone all quiet?” Shion asked, his fingers combing through Nezumi’s hair. Nezumi lifted his head from Shion’s chest, looked down at him.

“I’m not asleep,” he said, even though he feared this was a dream. He feared he’d wake up somewhere with a syringe in his hand and realize this was all a drug-induced haze, that Shion was not real but something his mind had made up under the influence of opioids so that he could cope with all the time he had.

“I see that,” Shion said, tucking Nezumi’s bangs behind his ears now. “What are you thinking about?”

“The way my life was before you,” Nezumi admitted, because Shion always went on about being honest, so Nezumi was trying.

Shion’s gaze flitted over Nezumi’s face, quick and cataloging. “I’m glad I can’t even remember my life before you. I don’t care about that time at all. It feels irrelevant.” 

“So does my life before you,” Nezumi said.

Shion’s expression saddened, and Nezumi hated that. “I wish you were happier before me. I wish you had an incredible life. I hate that you lived a hundred years and didn’t enjoy any of them.”

“Luckily, that’s the past, and it doesn’t matter anymore, and I have you now to fix the rest of my years.”

Shion bit his lip. “What if I can’t cure you?”

Nezumi remembered how Rai had put it. _Romeo and Juliet._ It seemed so melodramatic when he’d said it, but Nezumi supposed in essence, that was the best way to sum his plans up anyway. “That’s in a long time. We don’t have to worry about that.”

“You’ll kill yourself,” Shion said, not a question.

Nezumi shrugged. “I can’t predict the future.”

“You don’t even know if you can. What if you can’t? What if you’re really immortal?”

“Shion. I don’t want to think about that now. Let’s talk about scuba diving again.”

“I don’t want you to kill yourself. You’re so happy now, and even after me, you can be happy, you can find someone else, other people, another family.”

Nezumi sat up. He was still straddling Shion’s knees, so he unstraddled them.

Shion sat up quickly, grabbed Nezumi’s arm before he could slide off the bed.

“Don’t go because you don’t like talking about it. You can’t do that, just run away from what you don’t want to talk about all the time.”

“Why not? Why do we have to talk about this? Christ, Shion, you’re twenty-seven, you’re not dying any time soon, what does any of this even matter now?” Nezumi snapped.

“I’m almost twenty-eight,” Shion said quietly.

“Oh, in that case, you’re much more likely to die of old age, what was I thinking?”

Shion opened his lips, then closed them, released Nezumi’s wrist and exhaled deeply. “You’re right. It’s irrelevant now.”

Nezumi could tell there was more Shion had to say, but he didn’t care to know it. He was glad to let the subject drop, and stood up from the bed, stretching.

“I think I’ll go to bed now. That okay, Your Majesty?”

“Sure. I might stay up, look over some lab reports. Do you want me to go in the living room?”

“Stay here,” Nezumi said, then left the room to go the bathroom and brush his teeth and pee.

When he returned to their bedroom, Shion was back against the headboard of the bed with his laptop on his lap. Nezumi pulled off his t-shirt, preferring to sleep in only boxers, and hovered his hand by the light switch.

“Leave on or turn off?” he asked Shion, who looked at him.

“You can turn it off.”

Nezumi flicked the light off and climbed into bed beside Shion. He lay on his side with his back to Shion and closed his eyes, and after a moment, he felt Shion’s fingers on his shoulder, knew the man was touching his tattoo.

Nezumi still wasn’t used to it. It caught him by surprise when he undressed, or when he got out of the shower and saw himself in the mirror, or whenever Shion touched it and reminded Nezumi of its presence.

“Were you serious about the scuba diving?” Shion asked softly, after some time, when Nezumi had nearly fallen asleep.

Nezumi opened his eyes. He rolled over, looked at Shion lit up by the glow of his laptop in the dark room.

“Yes,” he said.

“Good,” Shion said back.

Nezumi closed his eyes again. He felt warm from his own happiness, and even though he wasn’t used to it, he knew without a doubt he wouldn’t be able to survive when it was gone.

*


	30. Chapter 30

A few nights later, Shion came to bed after brushing his teeth and smelled different.

Nezumi had been reading, but he put his book down, leaned closer to Shion, and sniffed his neck, making Shion squirm and giggle.

“What are you doing?” Shion asked between his laughs. “You’re like an animal!”

“You smell different.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

Shion leaned back from him, suddenly serious. “Is it a bad smell?”

“No. It’s just different,” Nezumi said, leaning closer again to sniff his cheek. “More plantlike. A soapy plant.”

“I’m using a new face cream.”

Nezumi stopped sniffing Shion. “Why?” 

“Why not?”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes, then slipped out of bed. He heard Shion following him to the bathroom, where he crouched and investigated the cupboard below the sink.

Shion stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s the white and blue tub,” Shion said, after a moment, and Nezumi picked it up, read the side of it out loud.

“Intensive Body Repair Revitalization Cream.”

“The greenish bottle is the one I use in the mornings,” Shion said, so Nezumi picked that one up.

“Silicate-Infused Wrinkle Reduction Anti-Aging Serum.”

“I toyed around with the idea of a seaweed facial, but that looks like a green mask, I knew you’d notice. I didn’t anticipate you sniffing me like a bloodhound. Although I’m not sure why I wanted to keep it a secret. It’s not. I might get some anti-aging supplements online, I’ve been researching a few.”

Nezumi returned the creams to the cupboard and stood up.

“Are you going to get mad at me now?” Shion asked. “Is this when you ask if I’ve got an appointment for plastic surgery too?”

“I’m not mad,” Nezumi said, after trying to figure out what he did feel. He wasn’t sure. Several of his castmates used anti-aging creams and serums. It was just a beauty product, it didn’t necessarily mean anything—except, of course, with Shion it did.

Shion uncrossed his arms. “So you’ve got nothing to say?” he asked, sounding almost disappointed. Nezumi imagined he’d already come up with rebuttals to any fight Nezumi might have picked with him.

“Does it upset you that I’ll always look young?” Nezumi asked, after a moment. It hadn’t occurred to him that Shion might be embarrassed. Not that Shion looked older than him, or much older, but he would. He’d look like an old man soon, an old man with a young boyfriend.

Shion blinked at him. “Why would that upset me?”

The mirror above the sink was right beside Nezumi, so when he turned, he couldn’t help but stare at his own reflection. “Maybe it’s embarrassing. You’re an esteemed professor, a pretty well-known figure in your field at this point. You can’t be toting some younger guy on your arm and be respected still.”

“What are you talking about? We look the same age.”

“Right now,” Nezumi told his reflection, but when he looked at himself he saw someone younger than Shion. He had no wrinkles by the sides of his eyes, and Shion already did. Probably from all the laughing he did, all the childish grins that crinkled his eyes up. If only he didn’t grin so frequently. If only he smiled less.

“Nezumi—That’s not why—I don’t care about that. I don’t care. I won’t care when we look different ages.” 

Nezumi stopped looking at the mirror. “Your creams say otherwise.”

Shion shook his head, gestured lamely at the cupboard. “I didn’t get those because I want to make sure the scientific community respects me. I got them because—because I know it’s hard for you to watch me age, so I wanted to slow the aesthetic process. To make it easier. Until I come up with a cure for you, and then it won’t even matter anymore, then I can throw the creams out.”

Nezumi didn’t point out that Shion’s attempts at the lab to cure him were futile. He nodded instead, didn’t argue with Shion, didn’t want to argue with him.

A part of him was glad for these stupid face creams. Maybe they’d work. Maybe they’d keep Shion young, at least on the outside, so Nezumi could deny for a little longer that time was passing.

“Okay,” Nezumi said.

“Okay?”

“Sure, the mystery of the soapy plant smell has been solved. Let’s go back to bed,” Nezumi said, trying to leave the bathroom, but Shion still stood in the doorway.

“You’re not going to make a scene?”

“I’m not a child, I don’t make scenes.”

Shion narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to empty my bottles and fill them up with something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, something to prank me or teach me a lesson.”

“Why would I want to teach you a lesson? You’re doing a nice thing for me. You know I don’t like watching you age, so you’re trying to hide your aging. I should be thanking you,” Nezumi replied.

Shion’s skeptical look deepened, but after staring at Nezumi for a good half minute, he stepped to the side of the doorway, and Nezumi slipped around him.

Nezumi got back in bed, the sheets still warm from their bodies. Shion slipped in beside him, inching closer to him even though they’d just had sex an hour before.

“Another round? I’m a bit exhausted, Your Majesty. If you get me an energy drink then I might be up for it.”

“I just want to sleep right next to you, is that allowed?” Shion asked, pausing.

“That’s allowed,” Nezumi confirmed, shifting so Shion was no longer cutting the circulation of his arm off and winding his other arm around Shion’s waist.

Shion pressed himself to Nezumi’s chest, and Nezumi knew the man would make him sweat in the night, but he was fine with that.

“Are you sure it’s not a bad smell?” Shion asked quietly, after he’d settled.

“I like it. You smell like what I imagine a fancy spa would smell like.”

“If it’s bad, tell me. I don’t want you to secretly think I smell bad.”

Nezumi squeezed Shion gently. “If I thought you smelled bad, I’d tell you, don’t you know that? Stop being paranoid. You smell so good I might start using the cream myself.”

Shion laughed into Nezumi’s chest. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m looking forward to the seaweed mask. Do you wrap seaweed around your face like a mummy? That sounds so sexy, I can’t wait. I think we have some in the pantry, did you check the kitchen?”

Shion laughed more, his body shaking against Nezumi’s, and when he unearthed his face from Nezumi’s chest, his face was flushed. “I really like you,” he said.

Nezumi leaned down, pressed his lips to Shion’s forehead briefly. “I should hope so. I got a tattoo for you, and turns out those things don’t just wash off.”

Shion smiled and closed his eyes, slipped his leg over Nezumi’s.

“Sweet dreams, Your Majesty,” Nezumi told him, then closed his eyes as well. He already felt hot, with Shion’s body pressed against his in the summer heat, and he doubted he would sleep well, but he didn’t move an inch.

*

Nezumi and Shion were making out on Safu’s couch. Nezumi had just climbed onto Shion’s lap and started biting Shion’s neck when the front door opened.

Nezumi groaned and didn’t stop grinding his hips down against Shion’s until he felt Shion’s hand in his hair yank sharply.

“Ow!”

“Get off me, Safu’s home.”

“Let’s go to the bedroom then,” Nezumi said, ignoring Safu’s cheerful—“Honeys, I’m home!”

“I have to get back to work, you’ve already distracted me enough. Unless you want to design my course for next semester?”

Nezumi groaned again but scooched off of Shion’s lap and settled back onto the couch cushion he’d been occupying before kissing Shion became more tempting than memorizing his script.

“After we get back from our trip, I’ll only have a month before the new semester. I have so much to do, and I don’t want to be worrying about it when we’re scuba diving,” Shion told him, grabbing his laptop from the floor where he’d put it when Nezumi started kissing him.

Nezumi had heard it all before and just waved his hand at Shion, opening his script book again.

“It’s rude of you both not to respond to my greeting,” Safu said, coming into the living room.

“How was work?” Shion asked.

“Uneventful, tedious. The cultures we’ve been attempting to grow for two months are yielding little results, it’s infuriating and boring and we might have to do it all over,” Safu complained, collapsing on the couch and stretching her legs over Nezumi’s lap.

“Aren’t you a therapist?” Nezumi asked her, looking up from his scriptbook.

“I can’t keep explaining what I do to you, there’s no point to it.”

“Psychoanalysis,” Shion answered for her. “She consults with chemists on their lab work on pharmaceuticals that aid brain development and enhance function and prevent degenerative diseases that manifest in brain tissue.”

“See, I don’t think I knew that,” Nezumi said.

“I should get you some samples of a memory drug from the lab, maybe that would help,” Safu replied dryly. “Shouldn’t you guys be packing instead of making out on my couch like gross teenagers?”

“My audition is tomorrow, and our flight is in two days. What seems more pressing?” Nezumi asked her.

“Is making out with Shion part of your audition?” Safu countered.

“I wish. We should try that. Come to my audition tomorrow,” Nezumi said, nudging Shion’s shoulder.

“Stop distracting me, I’m serious,” Shion warned.

“The flight to Cairo is fourteen hours, you can work on the plane,” Nezumi reminded.

“I don’t want to work on the plane! I want to sleep so that when we get there, I’m not jetlagged. You’d be wise to do the same.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nezumi said, turning back to his script.

He and Shion had already taken their required scuba diving classes, as it turned out there were plenty of places to scuba dive in Japan, but Shion was insistent that they do the actual diving somewhere foreign. Nezumi could not fathom the reason for this, but he’d already agreed to go wherever Shion wanted. After Shion researched best places to scuba dive, they’d settled on the Egyptian Red Sea.

“I really don’t know how you guys are going to scuba dive for two whole weeks,” Safu said.

“We won’t only be scuba diving. We’ll be seeing all of Marsa Alam, exploring the safaris and sunbathing on the beaches, sightseeing, maybe taking a trip into Aswan to see the temples. It’ll be incredible,” Shion gushed, apparently forgetting he was too busy working for distractions.

“But really, most of the time will be spent having sex in our hotel where we can be as loud as we want,” Nezumi said pointedly.

“Then I hope you booked an entire floor for yourself,” Safu replied, rather snarkily in Nezumi’s opinion.

“I could. What do you think, Your Majesty? Want me to book a whole floor?” Nezumi asked.

“Don’t start this again. No, I do not want you to do that. You better not. I’m worried I got you hooked on spending money. Where’s the stingy Nezumi I fell for?”

“Luxurious Nezumi bought him out,” Nezumi replied, grinning at Shion.

A flight to Cairo was pricey, but it turned out Nezumi was even richer than he’d expected. He never paid much attention to how much money he had in his bank account, but when Shion saw the number as Nezumi consulted his account to make sure he could afford the tickets, the man actually shouted.

_I knew you had money, but you’re really rich, Nezumi. Like, really really rich._

Nezumi was used to buying store brand foods and saving money at all costs, but something about Shion made him want to buy first-class tickets for their flight—which Shion refused to allow him to do—and the honeymoon suite at the hotel—Shion refused this as well, saying Nezumi could only book them a honeymoon suite if he married him.

Nezumi had been considering this—marrying Shion. He knew it was what Shion wanted, even though the man claimed just having a life with Nezumi without the official seal of marriage was fine for him. But now that Nezumi had official documents of his own, he figured marriage was an option, and it’d make Shion happy no matter what Shion claimed.

Nezumi was fully aware Shion had been planning to marry Rai at some point, and he was also fully aware Shion and Rai had only just broken up two and a half months before. He wasn’t going to propose any time soon, but he liked thinking about it. He liked thinking about marrying Shion a lot more than he’d ever expected he would.

“That’s enough of your distractions, stop talking to me, I’m not kidding, Nezumi,” Shion said, glaring suddenly.

“You have to get mad at Safu, too, she’s just as distracting.”

“I’m not,” Safu protested.

“If you’re bored, go start packing,” Shion said, leaning over his laptop.

“I’m not bored.”

“You are, and I can’t entertain you right now. Go amuse yourself somewhere else,” Shion said, not looking at Nezumi.

Nezumi sighed and stood up, knowing there was no need for him to practice for auditions. He’d done _Moulin Rouge_ a few times, knew his lines by heart and knew he’d get Satine, the prostitute protagonist who dies of tuberculosis. Nezumi was getting a bit bored with the prostitute kick his manager was entertaining, but his manager said he had a talent for playing prostitutes and the lovers of prostitutes.

Nezumi wasn’t sure how to take this comment, but Shion found it deeply amusing when Nezumi shared it with him.

Nezumi went to the kitchen to put on dinner. He looked in the fridge, wishing he’d thought to leave out meat to defrost for curry and wondering if it wasn’t even worth cooking.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Safu asked, beside him and hooking her chin over his shoulder.

“Maybe we should order take-out.”

“Sure, I’m good with that. Oooh, what about pizza? I could really go for pizza right now. Can we do pizza?” Safu asked, unhooking her chin from Nezumi’s shoulder and bouncing up and down.

Nezumi closed the fridge. “Check with our master, and if he gives permission, I’ll order.”

Safu ran back into the living room. “Shion, Shion, feelings on pizza?”

“What?”

“For dinner. Can we order pizza?”

“Oh, okay, that sounds good.”

“Just cheese today, Your Majesty? Or do you want shirasu?” Nezumi called.

“Just cheese!” Shion called back.

Safu bounced back into the kitchen, handing Nezumi his phone that he’d left on the living room couch. “He said just cheese,” she said. “Remember mushrooms for me.”

“I heard him, and did you really think I’d forget?”

“I never know with you,” Safu replied, hopping onto the counter beside the sink and sitting with her socked heels tapping the cabinet below.

Nezumi called the pizza place they always ordered from when they ordered pizza, the number saved onto his phone. He ordered the pizza and opted for carry-out, as the place was just across the street, and he and Safu always picked it up because Safu had a crush on the pizza maker.

“Ready?” he asked Safu, who leapt off the counter and ran to her room.

“Let me put on a bra!” she shouted from her room.

Nezumi knew she was only putting on a bra for the pizza maker, Charlie, an Irish guy who worked at the pizza place and always flirted helplessly—with broken but rather endearing Japanese—with Safu whenever she went to pick up their pizzas with Nezumi. Safu would put on a disinterested act that was almost too good—poor Charlie had no chance in hell of knowing Safu was massively into him. Nezumi told her repeatedly that he’d lose interest if she kept being so cold, but Safu insisted she knew what she was doing, so Nezumi never interfered with the bizarre act they both put on.

“Come with us to watch Safu cold shoulder Charlie with me, you always miss out,” Nezumi called to Shion as he put on his boots. The back of the couch blocked his view of Shion but for a sprout of his white hair.

“You always tell me what happens when you come back, it’s just as exciting that way,” Shion said back.

Safu ran back from her room, presumably wearing a bra, though her plain pink t-shirt didn’t do much to showcase the bra’s effort.

“At least wear a v-neck. Go on and change, I’ll wait,” Nezumi said.

“I like to let him use his imagination,” Safu replied, bending to put on her Keds.

“The poor guy’s been having to use his imagination for years, Safu,” Nezumi reminded her as he opened the front door. “See you, Your Majesty,” he called behind him.

“See you!”

Nezumi shut the front door and followed Safu to the staircase.

“You have great boobs, but they’re meaningless if you don’t use them,” Nezumi told her in the staircase.

“The meaning of boobs is to provide milk to offspring, not to woo pizza makers.”

“I don’t think Charlie would agree with that.”

Safu opened the staircase door to let them out into the lobby. “You better not let Shion hear you talking about my boobs, he’ll get jealous.”

“He should be jealous. His boobs are abysmal.”

Safu laughed and linked her arm through Nezumi’s as they left their building. The weather was hot and muggy, and Nezumi felt sticky almost immediately.

“What will I do with you guys gone for two weeks? The apartment will be lonely,” Safu sighed, leaning against Nezumi as they walked.

Nezumi and Shion had wanted Safu to come too, but she insisted she couldn’t leave work for two weeks.

“Two weeks isn’t long. And your apartment will be free of our sex moans, that should be nice.”

“Well, at least there’s that perk. But it’s not like you’ll be living with me forever.”

“We could.”

“Shion won’t want to.”

“He might.”

“He wants kids. You do know that, right?” Safu asked, and Nezumi glanced at her.

“He wanted kids with Rai. He knows it can’t be like that with me. I’m not the normal family type.”

Safu just raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“What?”

“Nothing. Talk to him about it.”

“He told you he wants kids with me?” Nezumi asked.

“Like I said, talk to him. But don’t do it on your trip, he’s been looking forward to that so much, and if you argue it’ll ruin it.”

Nezumi considered pressing her, but the only person he knew more stubborn than Shion was Safu, so he was well aware trying to get her to tell him anything she didn’t want to was futile.

On top of that, Nezumi, too, was looking forward to their trip. He didn’t want to ruin it for himself by talking about kids or how a future with him had to be different than a future with Rai, talking about how Shion must have known that.

“How about a new topic?” Safu proposed.

“Let’s talk about you, then. And Charlie. You’ll have the apartment to yourself for the next two weeks, that’s ample time for you to lock Charlie up, use him all you want, then kick him back out in time for Shion and my return.” 

“Mmm. That is an intriguing plan,” Safu said.

“He’s certainly cute, and underneath the innocent act he could be real kinky. If you weren’t into him, I might have already had my way.”

“And if you weren’t with Shion.”

“Ah, right, that ball and chain, what a nuisance,” Nezumi said, grinning when Safu elbowed him.

“Do you miss it at all? Your sexy nights with strangers?”

“Sexy? Maybe they were the first decade or so, but for a century it’s all just been the same. It was a way to fill up time. Nothing to miss.”

By then, they’d arrived at the pizza place. Nezumi opened the door for Safu, winking at her so that she was laughing as she walked up to the counter.

Indeed, Charlie, freckled and blonde and shy-smiled, stood behind the register and was watching Safu walk in. 

“Safu,” he said, and in his Irish accent it sounded like another name entirely, which Nezumi knew Safu loved. This had prompted Shion and Nezumi to often attempt to imitate Charlie’s accent—always with tragic results—when they called for Safu around the house.

“Oh, hey,” Safu said, nodding at him as if only just noticing him behind the register. “Picking up a large cheese pizza, quarter with mushrooms.”

“I know, yes, of course,” Charlie said, doing his shy smile even more shyly than usual, Nezumi thought, from where he stood a foot from Safu, giving her space to torture the poor man. “The mushrooms, you always get them, just a quarter. Are they for you or your friend?” Charlie’s eyes flitted quickly to Nezumi.

It was always Nezumi and Safu who ended up picking up their pizzas together, and Safu never confirmed nor denied Charlie’s worries that Nezumi might be her boyfriend, nor did Charlie ever out right ask. Nezumi himself stayed out of it, letting Safu play her game.

“Me. He hates mushrooms,” Safu said, reaching and squeezing Nezumi’s wrist.

Nezumi smiled back at her, then looked back at Charlie in time to see his gaze focused on Safu’s hand over his wrist.

“I hate mushrooms, too,” Charlie managed before someone shouted from the back, making Charlie jump.

“Charlie, get that out of the oven before it burns!”

“Your pizza,” he said to Safu, still looking startled and pointing with his thumb behind his shoulder. He stepped back from the counter, then turned and walked quickly to the oven. 

Safu released Nezumi’s wrist. “He looks extra cute today for some reason, don’t you think?”

“Stop torturing him,” Nezumi told her.

Safu didn’t seem to be listening to him. She was leaning over the counter, looking at the register, and then she pressed a button on it, and receipt tape started coming out of the machine.

“What are you doing? Don’t get us banned from our pizza place,” Nezumi hissed.

“Calm down,” Safu replied, ripping free the receipt tape that had curled out. It was blank, and Safu looked around the register. “Do you see a pen?”

“No,” Nezumi replied, looking around as well.

Charlie returned with the pizza in a box, and Nezumi handed him cash. Charlie was forced to stop looking at Safu longingly in order to press buttons on his register and make change for Nezumi, which he put in the tip jar.

“Can I use that?” Safu asked, pointing to Charlie’s ear, where a half-pencil was perpetually perched.

Charlie stared at her, rose his hand to his ear almost tentatively, then gave her his pencil.

Nezumi and Charlie both watched Safu write on the receipt tape she’d stolen, and then she handed both the paper and pencil to Charlie, who took it reverently, not even looking at the paper as he did so.

“I can’t read Japanese well,” he told her, looking so ashamed Nezumi had the strange urge to comfort him.

“Can you read numbers?” Safu asked.

“Some of them,” Charlie said, after a moment, and Nezumi clenched his jaw so he wouldn’t laugh.

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Safu told him, then reached for the pizza. “Thanks, Charlie.”

She didn’t wait for his reply before walking right back out of the pizza place, which was good because he was staring down at the piece of receipt paper and looked utterly speechless.

Nezumi leaned closer to him. “Don’t make her wait for your call. She doesn’t like waiting,” Nezumi advised.

Charlie stared up at him, then nodded. “She’s not—Is she?” he asked, sounding breathless.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Nezumi confirmed, figuring now it was okay to do so, since Safu had made a move. “She’s special, so you have to think of a good date idea, don’t just do some dinner and a movie shit. Think of something good.”

Charlie nodded, and then the door of the pizza place opened.

“What are you doing?” Safu asked, sticking her head in.

“Nothing at all,” Nezumi said, giving Charlie a nod before following Safu.

Outside he took the pizza from her and nudged her shoulder with his own. “I can’t believe you gave him your number. After all this time. What changed?” 

“I told you, he looked extra cute today.”

“He looked the same.”

“Well,” Safu said, and nothing else. 

Nezumi glanced at her. The pizza was warm over his palms. “What?”

Safu shrugged. “You and Shion are serious and everything now. And I feel—god, this is stupid. But I feel old not to have had a relationship yet. Am I old?” 

“Shion’s my first relationship, and I’m a hundred twenty-nine.”

“You’re a freak, Nezumi. I don’t want to be like you,” Safu snapped, and Nezumi laughed.

“I didn’t think you wanted a relationship.” 

“I didn’t! I mean, I do, but it’s not a dire want, it’s a back-of-the-mind want. But you and Shion, all happy in the apartment all the time, I can’t help it.”

“Shion was like that with Rai when they lived with you.” 

Safu waved her hand. “Rai never felt permanent, even when I thought he was. But you guys are. And you’ll be moving out. And I don’t want to be alone, I realized. I thought I liked living alone, but I actually don’t. It’s strange, realizing that about myself.”

“We’ll visit all the time when we move out. We’ll still basically live in your apartment, we’ll just pay rent on some empty place to satisfy Shion’s silly desires. You won’t be alone.”

“That’s right, I’ll have Charlie,” Safu said, smiling slightly, but her smile slipped away, and she gestured lamely. “Not that I’d even have time for him, or anyone. I’m at work too often. And when I’m not at work I don’t want to deal with some person needing my affections.”

“Charlie seems like a needy type. It amazes me that you’re into him.”

“I can’t figure it out either,” Safu mused. “I probably shouldn’t have given him my number. Now my fun and harmless pizza flirtations are over.”

“You never flirted with him, you just let him flirt with you.”

“That’s how I flirt,” Safu said.

Soon they were at their building. The smell of the pizza filled up the elevator as they rode to their floor so that by the time they got there, Nezumi was starving.

Shion was right as they’d left them. Nezumi deposited the pizza in the kitchen before heading back to the living room, standing behind the couch and leaning over it, pressing his face into Shion’s hair.

“Give me five minutes before you talk to me,” Shion said, sounding distracted and not pausing in his fast typing.

Nezumi hummed in response, didn’t lift his face from Shion’s hair. He smelled of shampoo. Nezumi stayed where he was for several breaths, not having any desire to move. He could hear Safu shuffling around the kitchen, knew she’d be getting plates out and filling glasses with water and pouring a little bowl of wasabi that Shion inexplicably liked dipping the ends of his crust into.

“Okay, finished,” Shion said, and Nezumi wondered if he’d fallen asleep for a moment, as Shion’s voice startled him, and he opened his eyes in time to watch Shion tilting his head back.

Nezumi looked at Shion’s upside down face.

“Are you going to kiss me?” Shion asked, so Nezumi leaned over more to align his lips with Shion’s, kissed him, felt Shion’s nose rubbing against his chin, felt Shion laugh breathy against his lips.

Nezumi leaned back up.

Shion pivoted on the couch until he was on his knees, his arms crossed over the back of the couch. “Anything happen with Charlie?” 

“Safu gave him her number.”

“What? You gave Charlie your number?” Shion called to the kitchen.

“It was a moment of insanity,” Safu called back. “Come eat!”

“What’s he like? I thought it was just a game, I didn’t think she actually liked him. They’ve been flirting for years,” Shion said to Nezumi.

“If you ever came to the pizza place, you could have seen him for yourself.”

“Now I want to go,” Shion said, standing up from the couch.

“I’ll go with you tomorrow to spy on him,” Nezumi told him, walking with him to the kitchen.

“You will not do any such thing. You have auditions tomorrow and then you have to pack, you have no time to spy on Charlie,” Safu warned, as they all sat around the counter.

Nezumi waited for Safu and Shion to get their slices before he took his.

“I have time to spy on him,” Shion said, mouth full of pizza.

“I thought you had no time for anything but planning your courses for next semester,” Safu said.

“I was very productive while you guys were picking up the pizza. My schedule is completely open for Charlie-investigating. How come you didn’t tell me you really liked him?”

“I don’t really like him.”

“She does,” Nezumi cut in.

“Can you both leave me alone? Don’t make me eat my pizza in my room.”

“What do we know about him other than that he moved here from Ireland and makes pizza?” Shion asked.

“Nothing at all,” Nezumi said.

“Why are you making this into a big deal? I gave someone my number, it’s not a big deal.”

“You gave someone your number that you’ve liked for years,” Shion said.

“I haven’t liked him for years,” Safu said back, her voice sharp now, and Nezumi set down his pizza slice.

“I didn’t mean to make you upset. We were joking,” Shion said, after a moment.

“I know. It’s fine,” Safu said, nibbling the edge of her pizza.

“Do you think you could cut my hair tomorrow?” Nezumi asked, to change the subject, and it worked as Shion frowned at him.

“I just gave you a trim.”

“Shorter. A few inches, I was thinking. It’s hot in Egypt.”

“It’s hot here. You’ll tie it up anyway. You’re not cutting your hair.” 

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” 

“No,” Shion said.

“And you’re in charge of my hair now?” Nezumi asked back.

“How would you feel if I dyed my hair?” Shion asked.

“It’s always getting in knots,” Nezumi complained. “And I go through shampoo and conditioner too quickly, you’re the one always lecturing me about that, aren’t you?”

They argued for the rest of dinner, and as they cleaned up. When the kitchen was clean, Safu excused herself to her room for the night, and Nezumi and Shion went to their own room. Nezumi settled in bed with his scriptbook, regretting getting comfortable when he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet, and Shion sat beside him with his laptop, but he didn’t open it.

“What’s going on with Safu?” he asked.

Nezumi closed his scriptbook. “She’s like me,” he said, after thinking about how to explain it to Shion for a moment.

“What does that mean?”

“It means all she’s got is you. I don’t think you know how easy it is to feel alone, even when you’re not really.”

Shion’s eyebrows creased.

“She’ll be fine,” Nezumi told him. “She’s strong, and she’s happy. But people can’t be happy all the time. Sometimes you forget how to for a moment.”

Shion slid his laptop off his lap and bent over the side of the bed to place it on the floor. He moved Nezumi’s scriptbook and curled up in Nezumi’s lap, his cheek on Nezumi’s thigh.

Nezumi drifted his fingers through Shion’s hair.

“You know if you forget, I’ll remind you,” Shion said softly.

“I know.”

“I wish she was coming scuba diving with us.”

Nezumi leaned his head back against the headboard, closed his eyes, kept his fingers in Shion’s hair. “Next trip, we’ll make her.”

“Next trip,” Shion repeated quietly.

He said nothing else, and after a few minutes, Nezumi had to nudge him awake. Nezumi wouldn’t have minded sleeping sitting up so Shion could stay as he was, but he knew Shion’s neck would hurt if he slept in that position.

They brushed their teeth groggily beside each other, took turns peeing, and Nezumi asked Shion if he could apply Shion’s anti-aging cream.

He did so carefully, concentrating on Shion’s face, as if he really believed a cream could make a difference.

*

Nezumi had not been worried about flying to Cairo. He’d never been on an airplane, but Shion had—just around Japan—and he’d given Nezumi all the statistics, how air travel was much safer than people seemed to think, how driving in cars was more dangerous, really, not that Nezumi even drove.

But Nezumi hadn’t needed Shion’s safety reassurances. He didn’t really care about flying, nor was he very terrified of crashing—the worst that could happen was death, and that didn’t scare Nezumi at all.

So he was fine until the airport, where Karan and Safu both came as well to send them off. Nezumi found this dramatic and unnecessary, especially when Karan hugged Nezumi so tightly with tears in her eyes that for the first time, Nezumi forgot he wasn’t worried about flying.

“It’s only two weeks,” Nezumi reminded her, over her shoulder, thinking the woman was stronger than she looked as she squeezed him harder still.

“I know. I know. I’m overreacting,” Karan said, releasing Nezumi and sniffing and wiping her eyes with the bases of her palms. “Ignore me,” she said.

“Really, Karan, don’t worry.”

“Just don’t elope while you’re there, okay? I want to be at your wedding.”

Nezumi glanced at Shion, relieved to see he was busy talking to Safu. “Don’t be stupid.”

Karan lifted her hand, pinched his cheek. “Treat him good. Don’t let him be eaten by a shark.”

“I won’t,” Nezumi said, smiling lightly.

“Have a lot of fun, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Three hours later, Shion and Nezumi had gotten their bags checked and gone through security and walked around the airport a little before waiting at the gate and boarding the airplane. Nezumi had a window seat, and he peered out at the sun setting above the runway before glancing at Shion.

“Put on your seatbelt,” he said, pointing at Shion’s un-seatbelted lap.

“I just sat down, give me a second,” Shion said back. He was stooped down, pushing his backpack below the seat in front of them. They didn’t have any carry-ons outside of Shion’s backpack, which Nezumi wasn’t happy with. He didn’t like the idea of checking bags. He wanted to know where his stuff was at all times, but Shion had called him ridiculous and insisted checking bags was completely reliable.

Shion sat up but still didn’t buckle his seatbelt. Nezumi had taken the safety information pamphlet from the seatback in front of him and flipped through it, then returned to the beginning to read it more carefully, but he stopped reading when Shion started looking through the movie selection on the little TV they all had.

“Your seatbelt,” Nezumi reminded.

“Are you worried? I told you not to be worried.”

“You’re supposed to wear a seatbelt.”

“People are still boarding.”

“If you don’t put it on now, you’ll forget.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll let me forget,” Shion replied.

Nezumi considered putting on Shion’s seatbelt himself, but he thought Shion might think he was worried if he did that, and Nezumi was not worried. He didn’t care about flying, he didn’t care about crashing, he wasn’t scared of dying at all.

He went back to reading the safety pamphlet and was looking around to see the nearest exit—either in front or behind him—as the pamphlet advised when Shion elbowed him.

“Statistically, you’re more likely to die by a bee sting than an airplane,” Shion said gently.

“Great, now I have to worry about bees on top of everything else.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“I know,” Nezumi snapped, staring back at the pamphlet.

Beside him, Shion put on his seatbelt, and Nezumi exhaled hard, trying to make himself relax.

It seemed to take an absurdly long time for everyone to board the plane, and then there was a flight safety instruction demonstration given that Nezumi had to crane his neck in order to see, and then the pilot made announcements that they’d be starting take-off. Nezumi stared out the window where the sky was dark now, but he could tell they had not moved.

“We’re not moving,” Nezumi said.

“It takes time.”

“There could be something wrong with the plane.”

“There’s not. Why don’t you watch a movie to distract yourself? There’s earbuds in the pocket there, or I can grab your earbuds from my backpack if you don’t like airplane earbuds.” 

“Stop talking about earbuds.”

The people in the row of seats behind Nezumi had recognized him as Eternal Eve as they’d walked to their seats, and Nezumi could tell they were talking about him still. He tried to listen to what they were saying to distract himself from wondering what could be wrong with the plane, but he couldn’t really hear much.

“I think my ears are doing the popping thing,” he said, turning to Shion, covering his ears with his hands. Shion had warned him about this.

“That won’t happen until we actually take off. We still haven’t moved.”

Nezumi lowered his hands from his ears. “What about cabin pressure?”

“Nezumi, take a deep breath.”

“I’m breathing just fine,” Nezumi said tightly, and then the plane jerked, and Nezumi clutched the armrest, heard his own gasp, felt his heart jump in his chest. “Shit,” he breathed. 

“Look out the window,” Shion said, leaning against him.

Nezumi looked out the window. The plane was moving, still on the ground, going slowly across the tarmac. Nezumi felt Shion’s hand over his, but he couldn’t pull away because he couldn’t unlatch his fingers from the armrest.

“The wings are designed so more air hits the bottom of them than the top, and the result is that the plane is pushed upward and forward,” Shion said, pointing at the wings.

“I don’t care about the way flight works,” Nezumi told him.

“I think it’s fascinating,” Shion replied.

Nezumi chewed on the inside of his cheek, then stopped before he ripped his own skin. “Tell me more about it then,” Nezumi said, and Shion leaned closer to him.

“If you look at the wing, you’ll see the top is curved, and the bottom is flatter. The shape is called an airfoil. The wing tips in a way that allows more air particles to hit the bottom of it, and the ones that are deflected to the top roll off without creating much pressure, so…”

Shion continued talking as the plane lifted up off the ground, and for a moment Nezumi’s hearing seemed to black out completely so that he couldn’t even hear Shion’s voice, but then his voice was back again, steady and calm. Nezumi didn’t bother making out Shion’s words. Just his voice was enough to keep Nezumi breathing as he watched Tokyo get smaller beneath him, its buildings turning miniscule until they didn’t look like buildings at all but blocks of black with blinking lights surrounded by sheaths of green and the deep blue-black of the ocean.

And then there was nothing to see out the window but sky, and it was dark now so the window might as well have been covered by black paint.

Nezumi’s hand still clutched the armrest, and he worked to relax his fingers, which prickled when he let go. He realized then that Shion was no longer talking, and he looked at him, saw Shion watching him carefully.

“I’ve never left Japan before,” Nezumi told him, even though he knew Shion already knew this.

Shion said nothing. He slipped his fingers through Nezumi’s and didn’t squeeze, just let his hand stay there, and Nezumi didn’t mind this.

Nezumi leaned against him, and he closed his eyes, remembering Shion’s insistence that they sleep as much as they could on the flight so they’d feel awake when they landed.

He doubted he’d be able to fall asleep. And really, he didn’t want to. He was in a giant machine flying in the air. He was leaving Japan for the first time in his life. He was going on the first vacation he’d ever gone on. Curled into his fingers were those of the man he loved.

Why would he waste time sleeping, when he could be awake for every second of it?

*


	31. Chapter 31

The two weeks in Egypt passed by both slowly and quickly. Time existed, but in a strange way. The days were incredibly long, packed with so much activity and food and scuba diving and sightseeing and walking and exploring and sex. Some days felt packed with so much Nezumi thought he was doing more in twenty-four hours than he’d done in any given year of his life before he’d met Shion.

But then, suddenly, the trip was over, and they were back in Cairo’s airport. And then they were back on a plane, and then they were back in Tokyo.

They stood silently at the baggage carousel, waiting for their luggage. Nezumi spotted their suitcases just as Shion pointed, and they stepped forward, grabbed them, hauled them through the airport following the signs that pointed to the shuttle.

They took the shuttle to the subway station, and then the subway to their own station, and then they walked from the station to their apartment building. It was late, but not too late, only eight o’clock. Even so, Nezumi felt incredibly groggy and exhausted, and he could tell Shion did too as the man didn’t say a word, a strange feat for him.

In the elevator, they leaned against opposite sides until the lift stopped at their floor and they had to get out. Shion scanned his card to open their door, and almost immediately, Safu ran at them.

“You’re home!” she shouted, hugging them both at the same time. “Are you hungry? I made food. Well, I tried to, but I can’t cook, so I ordered take-out! And there’s leftover pizza in the fridge, I’ve been eating a lot of pizza the last two weeks, if you know what I mean.”

Nezumi closed the front door after Safu released them, while Shion asked, “What do you mean, ‘if you know what I mean’? Are you saying you’ve been having sex with Charlie?”

“He may have stayed here without leaving but for his shifts at the pizza place for ten of the fourteen days you guys were gone,” Safu said. “But don’t ask about me until I ask about you. How was it? Tell me everything. Come eat!”

“I think we were just going to shower and go to bed, we’re so jetlagged, Safu,” Shion said weakly, dragging in his suitcase.

“Don’t be stupid, you’re eating, you’ll feel better after you eat, and you’re telling me everything,” Safu called from the kitchen.

Shion looked helplessly at Nezumi, who shrugged. “You know better than I do there’s no point fighting her.”

They set their suitcases in the bedroom, then showered together, not to fool around—they were much too exhausted for that—but because they knew Safu was waiting on them, and this seemed the quicker route.

Out of the shower, Nezumi felt marginally more alive. Shion, too, looked refreshed as they joined Safu around the coffee table in the living room, where she already had the boxes of take-out and plates ready and waiting.

They filled Safu in on their trip as best they could, though Nezumi wasn’t sure how to summarize with justice what’d been the best two weeks he could remember ever having in his life, so he let Shion do most of the talking. In the end, they didn’t get to bed until four in the morning.

“I think I might fall asleep and never wake up again,” Shion moaned, collapsing onto their bed.

“Don’t just lay across the entire bed like that, scooch over to your side,” Nezumi said, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to push him.

“Leave me, I’m in a coma,” Shion complained.

Nezumi pushed him harder, succeeded in getting Shion to his side of the bed while Shion continued to moan and groan and grumble.

“Are you done harassing me?” Shion asked, when Nezumi settled in the space he’d made for himself.

“I’m done,” Nezumi told him, and it was a few moments before he felt Shion rearranging himself beside him, in the end draping himself over Nezumi’s chest.

“I wish we were back in our hotel,” Shion said sleepily.

“Close your eyes and pretend it’s our hotel,” Nezumi said, his own eyes closed.

“Okay. It’s working a little,” Shion said.

Nezumi wrapped his arm loosely around Shion’s waist and fell asleep almost instantly.

*

Shion’s fall semester started a week and a half before his twenty-eighth birthday. Nezumi was busy splitting his time between the theater and the bakery. He’d been taking commissions for decorated cakes for about a year, but he hadn’t had many requests until suddenly, that summer, when they started coming in nonstop, so often he now had a waiting list.

He wasn’t sure how his popularity as a cake decorator had spiked until Karan showed him an article one of her customers had showed her. Apparently, a popular food critic had listed Karan’s Bakery as one of the top bakeries in Tokyo, not only for the baked goods but for the decorated cakes.

With all of these changes, Nezumi started seeing a lot less of Shion, and he knew this was part of dating the man—he was a workaholic. Nezumi was supportive of this, but then it was the day before Shion’s birthday, and it was eleven at night, and Shion still was not home from the lab.

Nezumi was waiting up for him so he could tell the man happy birthday right as the clock hit midnight. Safu was up as well, watching a cooking show on Netflix in the living room. Nezumi was on the couch beside her with his own laptop on his lap, watching an instructional Youtube video on how to do a half updo with a double twisted fishtail braid and trying to weave his own hair alongside the video’s steps.

“How’s it looking so far?” Nezumi asked, twisting his head so Safu could see more angles.

“Hm. What’s it supposed to look like?”

“That, the video.”

“Oh, that’s so pretty! No, what you did doesn’t look like that at all. I think you might have just tied knots in your hair.”

“Shit,” Nezumi muttered, starting to unweave the strands.

“This seems like something you need to do in front of a mirror.” 

“My arms are tired, can you undo it?” Nezumi asked her.

“You’re too tall, sit on the floor in front of the couch, and I’ll see if I can braid it for you.”

Nezumi did as she said, and after Safu freed his hair from his unsuccessful braids, he restarted the instructional video.

“The girl in the video doesn’t have bangs. Do I include yours in the braids or leave them out?” Safu asked, her fingers combing through his hair.

“Include them,” Nezumi told her. “And don’t get knots in my hair.”

“You did a fine job of that yourself. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

Nezumi relaxed against the bottom of the couch while Safu braided his hair. He watched the time on the corner of his laptop, and soon it was five minutes to midnight.

“Five minutes till Shion’s birthday,” he said.

“Somehow, you’re more obsessed with his birthdays than he is. And we both know he’s way too obsessed for someone who’s not a child.”

“Don’t tug,” Nezumi warned.

Safu kept weaving, and then it was midnight, and then it was past midnight. Her hands left Nezumi’s hair at twelve past midnight, and she followed Nezumi to the bathroom where he inspected it.

“A little messy,” he said.

“It’s gorgeous, I’m amazed. I think I should quit my job and become a hair person.”

Nezumi fingered the braids. “The word you’re looking for is stylist.”

“I don’t want to cut hair. I just want to braid it. This exact braid. Amazing,” Safu gushed.

Nezumi rolled his eyes at his reflection. “Well, thanks. But it’s gone to waste. I’ve got to get up early to open the bakery tomorrow, so I’m going to bed.”

“You’re not going to wait up?”

“I did wait up. It’s just the same as any other day, anyway, and I never wait up for him when he’s late.” 

“It’s not any other day. It’s his birthday.” 

“Who’s obsessed with his birthday now?” Nezumi countered.

Safu threw up her hands. “Fine, fine. Let me just get a picture of your hair to use in my portfolio for when I open my hair braiding business.”

“I have a no photograph rule, remember?” Nezumi reminded her.

“There goes my hair braiding business,” Safu replied, then kissed Nezumi’s cheek goodnight and left the bathroom.

Alone, Nezumi brushed his teeth before remembering he’d already brushed his teeth. He spit, rinsed his mouth, and looked at himself in the mirror a moment longer, touching the braids that really weren’t so bad. He didn’t take them out even though he knew sleeping with them would make him wake with a headache.

He shed his t-shirt and sweats before climbing into bed, lying on his side, and stretching his arm out to lay flat over Shion’s empty side. He could feel the braid pressing into the side of his skull, a gentle pressure he knew would increase as the night went on. But now, it was tolerable, and soon, Nezumi didn’t feel it anymore, as he was asleep.

*

Nezumi woke when someone touched his arm and saw in the dark of the room that Shion was settling beside him.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, but I didn’t want to sleep on top of your arm either,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Hi. Happy birthday.” He could hear the grogginess in his own voice.

Shion touched Nezumi’s hair. “You look really beautiful.”

“I wanted to stay up for you. What time is it?”

“Around three, I think. You don’t have to try to stay up, you know I’m at the lab late. It doesn’t make sense when you have to get up early for the bakery.”

Nezumi lowered back down. He said nothing and closed his eyes.

“Won’t you get a headache if you sleep with your hair in braids?”

“It’s fine,” Nezumi said.

Shion said nothing, but even with his eyes closed, Nezumi could feel the man’s gaze on him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We don’t have to make a big deal out of my birthday. It’s not a big deal. It’s just another day.”

Nezumi opened his eyes again. “You love your birthdays.”

Shion shrugged, his right shoulder caught against the bed so only his left shoulder rose and fell.

“I don’t want you to stop loving them because of me.”

“I used to love them because I was so eager to be as old as you. But now…” Shion tilted his face so that his lips were hidden by his pillow.

“Now you want to mourn the day that used to make you happy? Because of me? That’s what you’re telling me?” Nezumi asked.

“Mourn is a strong word.”

“I want you to be happy every day, and I want you to be happy on your birthday. I don’t ever want to be the reason you’re not happy.”

“That’s very unexpectedly sweet of you, which makes me suspect you must still be half asleep. But I’m not unhappy. I just don’t think we need to make a big deal anymore.”

“I’m going to make a big deal on your birthday whether you want me to or not. And I’m not half asleep. When I’m sweet it shouldn’t be unexpected.” 

Shion inched closer to him. “Everything about you is unexpected.” He closed the rest of the distance between them, kissed Nezumi gently, but when he leaned away Nezumi leaned closer, kept kissing him, rolled on top of him and felt Shion laugh into his lips.

“Are you tired?” Nezumi asked him.

“No. Don’t stop. It’s my birthday, you’re not allowed to stop kissing me until I say so,” Shion said, his hands on Nezumi’s face now pulling him back, so Nezumi didn’t stop.

*

A month after Shion turned twenty-eight, he asked Nezumi to the lab. Nezumi assumed he was getting his blood drawn, but instead, Shion led Nezumi through the maze of hallways to a room he’d never been in before. Shion even had to unlock the door of it with a key from his pocket.

Inside, it looked less like a doctor’s examination room and more like a hospital room. This was largely due to the cot and what appeared to be several heart monitors, which Nezumi stopped at the doorway to stare at even after Shion walked into the room and set his backpack on the floor against the wall.

“What’s going on?”

“I asked you to take the next week off the theater and not to take any bakery commissions for a week,” Shion said.

“You said you wanted to take a trip to Yokohama Bay,” Nezumi reminded.

Shion started rolling up the sleeves of his button down. “I lied. I finished the serum I’ve been working on. It’s as ready as I think I can get it, and it’s best you start using it as soon as possible if you want to mimic the natural maturity of a normal person.”

Nezumi absorbed these words, turned them over in his head for a minute. “Are you talking about the cure? To make me—” _die_ “—age?”

Shion nodded.

Nezumi stared at him. “Is there a reason you didn’t tell me?”

Shion looked extremely calm for someone who’d been caught in a lie. Remarkably calm for someone who was suggesting he was about to change Nezumi’s life. Absurdly calm for someone who was implying he could make Nezumi age, he could make Nezumi die—but he couldn’t, of course, that was impossible.

It was impossible. Nezumi thought to remind Shion of this, but then Shion was talking. 

“I’ve been rechecking it every day for a month, and I didn’t want you to get your hopes up if something went wrong with my checks, so I didn’t tell you when I finished it. But I needed to make sure you gave enough notice at the theater to take off a week in case something goes wrong and you need recovery time. But nothing went wrong with my checks. It’s safe. I would never be administering it to you if it wasn’t ready.”

Nezumi decided to play along even though, obviously, none of this was possible. “So you’re saying you finished. The whole cure, it’s done, you’ve got it somewhere in this room.”

“It’s in this drawer,” Shion said, pointing to a nightstand beside the cot.

“A magic potion to make me age.”

“Nezumi, it’s not a magic potion. It’s science.”

“Like the one you gave yourself when you were sixteen. The one that changed your DNA, changed your eye color and hair color and gave you that scar.”

“This is nothing like that. I wasn’t trying to change your DNA. The process is completely different, and this one is safe, this one will work.”

Nezumi squinted at him. Shion really seemed to think his magic potion would work. He really seemed convinced he could do the impossible, and while he could be naïve, usually when it came to science and whatnot, he was pretty rational.

Nezumi decided to play along, just to see what would happen. He didn’t really care if Shion injected some random serum in him. Nezumi himself wasn’t going to bother getting his hopes up, but if Shion wanted to, Nezumi would let him. Nezumi was generally glad Shion didn’t share his own cynicism. He liked Shion’s optimism, however stupid it was.

“So that’s why this one took so many years when your magic potion only took, what, a year to make?” Nezumi asked, playing along. He wanted Shion to think he believed it, too. He wanted Shion to know that no matter how useless the guy’s attempts were to cure him, Nezumi was amazed by him, grateful to him for trying—even when that trying was futile. 

“I was able to make a DNA-altering drug for myself after only a year because research has been done extensively on the normal human genome, on what ages normal people,” Shion explained. “I had so much to consult with my own body, and I’d been doing that research years before I started actually working on a drug at the lab. But for you, there’s been no research done. Nothing was known about you. That took a long time, and it was just me alone working on it—and Safu, sometimes, consulting on my findings—and I wasn’t going to rush it.”

Nezumi nodded. “How does it work?”

Shion opened the top drawer of the nightstand he’d pointed to before and pulled out a tray. On the tray was an IV drip bag.

“You’ll lie on the cot. I’ll hook you up to this IV, inside it is the serum. It’ll take a few hours to get into your system, and then we’ll stay here the night so I can observe you, make sure everything is okay with your vitals. But like I said, you’ll be fine, I did a lot of testing.”

“I’m not worried, Your Majesty. Is it a one-time thing? Then I just start aging normally?” Nezumi asked, glad he was an actor, glad he could act the part, the part of the guy who believed he could be cured when he knew better, he knew better than to even let himself hope.

“No, we’ll have to do it a lot. As of now, I want to do it once every three months. I know it’s a lot, I’m trying to work on something that I’ll only need to administer once a year, twice a year at most. But aging is a gradual process, and the gist is that the drug damages parts of your chromosomal make-up in a way that’s meant to mimic how normal chromosomes become damaged through decades of replication. But obviously, I don’t want to damage your DNA too much at once. Just, you know, the average amount. Ideally, it’d be something that I give you once a day. But that’s unreasonable.”

“You’re not going to try to explain the science to me?”

“I can if you want. I figured you wouldn’t.”

“I don’t,” Nezumi confirmed. “Your Majesty, you realize this is amazing. Right? You’re acting very casual, but this—this is incredible.” Even though it wouldn’t work, Nezumi was sure whatever serum was in that bag Shion held had taken work and intelligence nobody else in the world was capable of. No matter what was in there, it was incredible. Shion was incredible, and he would be, even when Nezumi didn’t age, even when nothing changed.

Shion did not look at all pleased at Nezumi’s compliment. If anything, he seemed worried for the first time. “Are you still sure about this? If you don’t want to do it, I don’t want you to feel any pressure just because it’s something I’ve been working on for years. I learned so much from working on this, things applicable to other facets of my work, so it won’t be wasted time. And this is a huge decision—”

Nezumi closed the door while Shion rambled and walked to the cot, sat on the edge of it to peel off his boots and held his arm out to Shion.

“I have no doubts at all.”

Shion’s expression remained wary. “I know you trust me. But this is an experimental drug. I did everything I could to make sure it was safe. But—Nezumi—Anything could happen.”

“Like my eyes might turn red?” Nezumi asked.

“I’d never forgive myself if anything about you changed,” Shion breathed.

“The point is to change me. If you can do that for me—” he couldn’t, Nezumi knew that, but he could play along, he could make believe, just for a moment, that Shion could, “—you’d be giving me everything. You’ve already changed my life, you know that. But if you could change my death, too, it’s more than I ever expected.”

And he didn’t expect it. He didn’t. It wouldn’t happen. Nezumi reminded himself of this. He couldn’t let himself forget, even as he played his part for Shion.

Shion seemed to be searching Nezumi’s face, maybe for hesitation, maybe for doubt. But Nezumi knew how to hide all of that. And then Shion was taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Okay. Sit back, all right? The IV goes into the back of your hand. You can choose left or right.”

Nezumi scooched back on the cot and sat up against the pile of pillows while Shion hooked the IV bag onto the stand beside the cot. Nezumi offered his left hand to Shion, who took it carefully, like Nezumi was fragile, and squeezed his fingers gently before swabbing the back of his hand. He put the swab on the nightstand, then stuck the needle at the end of the IV line into Nezumi’s skin. He taped the needle down, seeming like an expert, but Nezumi had a feeling Shion hadn’t done this before, just as he’d never drawn blood before he drew Nezumi’s.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Nezumi said, watching the IV bag drip its liquid into the tube drop by drop in what seemed an extremely slow process. “How long does this take?”

“A few hours.”

“Ah, lucky my nurse is my boyfriend, and he can entertain me. I know some activities that can take a few hours,” Nezumi said, but Shion frowned.

“We can’t do anything physically stimulating. I need you to pay close attention to your body and let me know if anything feels wrong. You won’t be able to focus on subtle changes if you’re getting sexually aroused.” 

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“If you don’t take this seriously, I’ll leave you alone, and you’ll have no distraction from your physical reactions at all.”

Nezumi huffed. “Fine. What do you suggest? I’m not playing Go Fish again.”

“I have my laptop, we can watch a movie,” Shion said, stooping to pull his laptop out of his backpack, then walking around the cot to the other side and climbing on beside Nezumi.

“How about an X-rated movie? And then we’ll just see what happens.”

“Nezumi.”

“I think the serum is making me horny. What might that mean?” 

“It’s not a joke. You have an experimental drug running through your veins.”

“Not for the first time,” Nezumi said, smiling while Shion glared at him, though his glare faded as he continued to look at Nezumi with growing scrutiny. “What?” Nezumi asked, leaning away from him, wondering if the drug had done something to him already, maybe changed his eye color like Shion’s.

“This drug is going to make you age normally. It’s going to make you die after the lifespan of the average person,” Shion said slowly.

“I’m aware of that,” Nezumi replied.

“That’s what you want. That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“Yet another fact I’m aware of.”

Shion shook his head. “You’re acting normally. You’re joking and—and you’re being normal.”

“What should I do?”

Shion narrowed his eyes. “You don’t believe me. You don’t think it’s going to work.”

Nezumi kept his expression smooth. “You’re a genius. If anyone could cure me, you could.”

“But you don’t think anyone can cure you. Including me. You don’t think I’ve done it.”

“Shion, I know you’ve worked hard—”

Shion pushed his laptop off his lap and pivoted to face Nezumi on his knees. “I don’t need your praise. I don’t care about that. I don’t care about the years I spent working on this, or knowing you’re grateful for it, or whatever, I don’t—” Shion huffed, his fingers curling into fists in the thin blanket that covered the cot.

Nezumi sat up, a difficult task, as the many pillows were abnormally soft and seemed to be working to swallow him. “Maybe you don’t care about my gratitude, but I do. It’s important to me that you know how much this matters to me, all the work you’ve put into this.”

“ _This_ being a cure that you don’t believe will work,” Shion said dryly.

Nezumi said nothing. It was no use to keep lying now.

“So what—You just let me put some random drug in you that you don’t think will work?”

“I know it won’t hurt me.”

“But if you don’t think it’ll work, why let me give it to you?” Shion demanded.

Nezumi sighed. “I don’t know how to hope. I’m not good at it, I avoid it. It feels like something dangerous to me, a risk not worth taking. But you’re inclined to hope. You want hope. You need it. I didn’t want to take it away from you.”

“Don’t patronize me!” Shion shouted. “This is real, it’s real whether you believe it or not. It’s going to kill you, Nezumi, I promise you that. You’re going to die when I do, just wait, you’ll see.”

Nezumi worked to keep himself from smiling. “Okay, I’ll wait.”

“I’m serious. Don’t go thinking you’re letting me entertain some false hope here. This is science, it’s real, it’s proven, I’ve proved it.”

“Understood.”

Shion narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t keep arguing. Instead, he took Nezumi’s hands in his, and Nezumi glanced down, saw that Shion’s thumb was just beside the IV on the back of his hand.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Nezumi. I wouldn’t give you false hope. I’d never do that,” Shion said, his voice even now, calmer, bordering on insistent.

Nezumi didn’t take his hands from Shion’s. “I’ve read a lot of books, Shion. I’ve read a lot of things that are impossible, that could never be reality. What you’re suggesting, curing me, aging me, that seems to me more impossible than anything I’ve ever read.”

“More impossible than that you stopped aging in the first place? More impossible than that you’ve been alive for almost a hundred thirty years?” Shion asked.

“No. But I have proof of that. I have proof that I haven’t aged. I have proof that I haven’t died. I don’t have any proof of this drug being a cure but your word.”

“There’s science behind my word. There’s research, and work, and experimentation.”

“Experimentation on what? Rats?” Nezumi asked. “Unless there’s been experimentation on another person like me, unless there’s been experimentation on another human who can’t age, then none of that means anything to me. It has nothing to do with you. I know you’re a genius. But this isn’t something that can be cracked by a genius. I’m not something that can be solved. I believe you can do anything, Shion. Except fix me. It’s simply not possible.”

Shion’s gaze slid between Nezumi’s. “You don’t need to believe me right now. You don’t need to believe that it will work. I know it will, and whether or not you believe it doesn’t really matter. In a few months, after the drugs have had time to work and your age starts to show, you’ll have your proof.”

“What will happen? Will I suddenly develop arthritis? Will I break out in liver spots? Will my hair start falling out?” Nezumi paused. “Wait, will it?” he asked, freeing a hand from Shion’s to touch his bangs gingerly, wary now.

Shion smiled faintly. “No. Well, eventually, but not any time soon. The process will be gradual. At first, it will just be small things. Like smile lines, maybe.” Shion lifted his hand and touched Nezumi’s lips. “Some things you won’t see, so I’ll have to do regular blood tests on you.”

“What things won’t I see?”

“Oh, anything. Like, your metabolism will slow down, probably not for another ten years or so, though. Just normal things like that.”

“Normal things,” Nezumi repeated.

“Normal things,” Shion confirmed.

Nezumi caught himself before he started hoping. “I still don’t believe it will work.”

Shion’s look was too knowing. That was the problem with him. He’d always been able to look at Nezumi and see the things Nezumi didn’t want to show, even to himself.

“I know you don’t,” Shion said, and Nezumi was grateful to him for lying, for letting Nezumi pretend there wasn’t a part of him—a small, insignificant part—that wondered if the drug in his veins might really kill him.

*

Nezumi woke feeling violently nauseous. This wasn’t the first time he woke nauseous, so at first he didn’t think much of it. He waited a moment before opening his eyes, hoping he’d remembered to put his trash can by his mattress and prepared to stumble as quickly as possible to his bathroom if he hadn’t.

He opened his eyes and did not see a trash can. Instead, he saw Shion, and this was a jarring sight, and next he saw that he was not in his bed in his apartment after a long night of drinking and fucking strangers—the usual precursor to waking up with his stomach churning with such vigor. Instead, he was in the lab, and he remembered Shion’s cure all at once.

He pressed his palm against his lips and laid very still, hoping the nausea would pass, but instead, it seemed to grow. Nezumi knew there was a trash can on the side of the bed, but that required rolling over, and he wasn’t sure he was going to make that. He made himself breathe deeply through his nose as he moved slowly, rolling so he was no longer facing Shion but facing the edge of his side of the cot. He inched closer to the edge, and he glanced down and saw the trash can and felt a new wave of nausea he couldn’t suppress.

He chalked it up to the decades he’d spent vomiting after drunken nights that he managed to pick up the trash can and get it below his mouth in time to catch his vomit. He kept retching, his body convulsing, half his torso hanging off the side of the cot. As he continued to vomit, he felt himself slipping off the cot.

“Shit,” he hissed, between retches. He felt awful and had always hated vomiting, and it seemed somehow worse this time.

“Nezumi?” Shion’s voice was groggy behind him, and then suddenly sharper. “Nezumi! I got you, okay, I got you.” 

Nezumi felt Shion’s hands on his hips, pulling him back, and then Shion was gripping his torso, heaving him up so he no longer was hanging half off the cot. But the upward movement only made Nezumi more nauseous, and he stuck his head deeper into the trash can.

“Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Shion was saying, his hands on Nezumi’s hair, collecting it as Nezumi had slept with his hair down.

In a break between retches, Nezumi didn’t lift his face from the trash but repositioned himself so he sat less precariously. He crossed his legs and hugged the trash can to his chest with both arms. He felt the cot shift behind him and then beside him, and he knew Shion sat next to him now.

“Are you done?” Shion asked.

Nezumi shook his head, still half in the trash. He had closed his eyes, but he could feel that they were wet and that a tear had fallen. He hated that his eyes watered when he vomited, but usually at least he didn’t have an audience.

“It’s okay,” Shion said, his hand rubbing Nezumi’s back, and then Nezumi curled forward more and retched more, his stomach tight and his throat burning and sore. He could hear his breaths, heavy and ragged, and then that round of retching finished and Nezumi felt marginally better, like maybe it was over.

He lifted his head tentatively, glanced at Shion, who reached out and wiped his cheek, the stupid tear.

“I’m not crying. It happens when I vomit,” Nezumi explained. His voice came out ragged and hoarse.

Shion nodded. “How do you feel?”

“I think it’s over.”

“Good. If you don’t think you need it any more, let me take care of that. I’ll be right back.”

Nezumi let Shion take the trash can, and then Shion left the room. While he was gone, Nezumi went into the bathroom where he and Shion had brushed their teeth the night before. Nezumi had found it unnecessary that Shion insisted he stay in this room in the lab for three nights just in case the drug had adverse effects, but now Nezumi was wondering what other adverse effects might befall him.

In the bathroom, he peed, then brushed his teeth and washed his face, as well as the ends of his hair that had been caught in the spray. He tied his hair up into a bun, wishing the bathroom had a shower.

After his hair was up, Nezumi looked at himself in the mirror. He could see no sign of aging. He just looked tired, really, and his eyes were ringed with pink. On the back of his hand was a band-aid over where the IV had stuck. Shion had taken it out the night before when the IV bag was empty. It had taken five hours for all of the drug to drip into his body.

“Nezumi?”

Nezumi went to the bathroom doorway, saw that Shion was back with a new trash can, this one black when the previous one had been blue.

“Oh, hi,” Shion said, on seeing Nezumi. “I thought you’d left.”

“And gone where?” 

“I don’t know. Are you okay?” Shion was in front of Nezumi now, had set down the trash and lifted his hands to cup Nezumi’s face.

“I’m fine. Did you know the drugs would do that? I could have used a warning.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Does that mean they’re not working?”

“No. It just means your body is aware of a foreign substance and doesn’t like it.” Shion had released Nezumi’s face and was holding his wrists, pulling his arms and twisting them, seeming to examine him.

“What are you doing?”

“Your arms look okay. If you were really rejecting the drug, there’d be signs. When people reject blood transfusions, there’s signs, like flushed skin, but you don’t have that. Did you pee? What color was your urine?” Shion had let go of Nezumi’s wrists and was pressing the back of his hand to Nezumi’s forehead.

“Um, normal.”

“Good. Do you feel faint? Itchy anywhere? Come back to the bed.”

Nezumi followed Shion back to the cot and sat at the edge of it, watching Shion open the nightstand drawer. He pulled out a stethoscope and that Velcro strap thing Shion sometimes wrapped around Nezumi’s upper arm and tightened for “data” by squeezing the balloon at the end of the tube attached to it.

“I don’t feel anything but tired.”

“How tired?”

“The normal tired one would feel post-morning vomit, I guess,” Nezumi said, while Shion put the stethoscope in his ears and rubbed his palm over the part that would measure Nezumi’s heartbeat.

“Lift your shirt,” he said, so Nezumi did, and Shion placed the measuring part of the stethoscope over his heart. “Take a deep breath.”

Nezumi took a deep breath. He liked when Shion played doctor. He was incredibly sexy.

“Again,” Shion said, so Nezumi took another breath.

“Will I die, doctor?” Nezumi asked.

“Not today,” Shion said, taking the stethoscope from his ears and pulling the strap thing free from its Velcro fastening. Nezumi held out his arm and let Shion wrap the strap around it. He watched Shion pump the balloon and look at the little gauge with numbers.

“How’s it looking?” Nezumi asked, after the strap tightened almost unbearably around his arm before the pressure finally released.

“Normal,” Shion said, freeing Nezumi’s arm from the strap and replacing his supplies in the nightstand. “I don’t like that you vomited though.”

“I don’t like it either.”

“But it’s nothing to worry about. I think your body was just a little freaked out. Do you still feel nauseous at all? Even a little?”

“No. Did any of the rats vomit?” Nezumi wasn’t sure if rats even could vomit, but he couldn’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t be able to.

“What rats?” Shion asked, blinking at him.

“The ones you tested this cure on.”

“How did you know I tested it on rats?”

“Aren’t rats what drugs are usually tested on?”

“Well, yes. And yes, a few vomited.”

“And they were fine,” Nezumi pressed.

Shion paused, then nodded. “The rats were perfectly fine. A little older, that’s all.”

“That’s normal for rats. They age,” Nezumi reminded, deciding not to worry about the brief hesitation. “Unless you tested the drug on immortal rats?”

Shion smiled. “Maybe they were immortal. But I’ll never know because after I administered my cure, they were no longer immortal.”

“Very funny, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, as Shion stepped closer to him, standing between Nezumi’s knees.

“Are you sure you feel okay? You’re not just telling me that?”

Nezumi squeezed Shion’s hips between his knees and before wrapping his legs around Shion’s waist and hooking his ankles behind Shion’s lower back. “I feel okay.”

“I made a questionnaire I want you to fill out, it has specific questions to gauge how your body feels.”

“I just told you how my body feels.”

“You still have to do the questionnaire.”

“I didn’t know this drug would come with homework.”

“Now you know,” Shion replied. He was looking at Nezumi closely, and Nezumi suspected he was looking for wrinkles, signs that Nezumi had aged in the night.

Nezumi let the man look. He knew Shion wouldn’t find anything, but Nezumi had always loved to be looked at by him.

*


	32. Chapter 32

After his first dose of the cure, Nezumi refused to look in the mirror out of habit. Shion had told him, anyway, that the drug—if it worked, which Nezumi knew, of course, it would not—was not going to make any blatant visible changes after just one dose.

So life continued as normal, or the newest form of Nezumi’s normal, which was living with Shion in Safu’s apartment. It was his favorite normal of all the normals he’d had in his life. It was the only normal he ever wanted to have again.

This normal soon began to include another person—Charlie, Safu’s pizza boy lover. Nezumi was in the kitchen at one in the morning, uninterested in going to sleep because Shion wasn’t home from the lab and rifling through the cupboard to see whether Safu had the baking supplies necessary for cinnamon rolls, when Charlie walked in wearing only boxers.

“Oh—Nezumi, hi,” Charlie said, his Scottish accent clumsy over Nezumi’s name.

Nezumi closed the cupboard door and leaned against it. “Hey there, Charlie. I see you’ve been busy.” Charlie had scratches—clearly the work of fingernails, most likely Safu’s fingernails—all over his chest.

Charlie’s hands fluttered nervously in front of his chest. “Um, ah, it’s—I’m—”

“To give you some advice, you shouldn’t let Safu bully you.”

“Bully?” Charlie repeated, sounding confused, and Nezumi realized he probably didn’t know that word in Japanese.

“You know, boss you around. Mess with you. Beat you up.”

“What’s going on?” Safu asked, emerging in the kitchen wearing only Charlie’s pizza t-shirt, which went down to her thighs. “Don’t harass him,” she said, pointing at Nezumi.

“I’m not harassing him, I’m talking to him. He seems to have acquired certain injuries, and I’m concerned for his well-being.”

“Don’t be,” Safu said shortly, going to the fridge and opening a door, pulling out a can of whipped cream.

“I shouldn’t be concerned for your boyfriend?” Nezumi asked.

“If you’re doing your insomniac baking routine, I’m craving pineapple sweet buns,” Safu said, already leaving the kitchen with her whipped cream, reaching out to grab Charlie’s wrist as she went.

When Charlie turned to follow her, Nezumi saw another set of scratches over his back.

Nezumi returned to his search for ingredients, sticking to his plan for cinnamon rolls despite Safu’s request, and had a batch in the oven by the time Shion came home.

Nezumi was washing the dishes he’d used when he heard the front door.

“Why are you up?” Shion asked, coming into the kitchen.

“Hello to you, too. How was your day, my darling?” Nezumi asked, as Shion pressed his body against Nezumi’s back and wound his arms around Nezumi’s waist.

“Tiring,” Shion sighed, his forehead butting between Nezumi’s shoulder blades. “What did you make tonight?”

“Cinnamon rolls.”

“Aren’t you tired? You go to sleep so late and get up so early to go to the bakery.”

“I feel fine,” Nezumi said, and then Shion’s arms were no longer around his waist, and the man was next to Nezumi, who finished rinsing soap out of the mixing bowl—the last dish— before turning off the faucet and glancing at him. “What?”

“Maybe it’s an effect of the cure. Some of the rats had insomnia.”

“How do you measure insomnia in rats?”

“Easily.”

Nezumi squinted at him. “Safu used the same word. Insomnia. Have you guys been talking about me?”

“We talk about you all the time,” Shion said, shrugging. “Do you think you have insomnia?”

“No. I just like waiting up for you.”

Shion hummed but continued to look at Nezumi carefully. Nezumi turned from him, checked the cinnamon rolls, but he’d just put them in after letting them rise for forty-five minutes. They’d need another twenty minutes at least.

“Help me make the glaze,” Nezumi said.

“I’m exhausted.”

“Then sit on the counter and look pretty and keep me company,” Nezumi said.

Shion groaned but sat on the counter while Nezumi got out the supplies for the icing.

“Is Charlie here tonight?”

“I believe Safu is currently slathering him in whipped cream.”

Shion crinkled his nose. “That would be so sticky.”

“Before that, she ripped the poor guy to shreds, so I’d say the whipped cream is a mercy on him.”

“What does that mean?” 

“He came out into the kitchen with fingernail marks all over him.”

“Really?” Shion asked, leaning forward as Nezumi started mixing the butter with the sugar and vanilla extract. “Fascinating. I didn’t know Safu was into that. Maybe it’s Charlie who’s into that. I feel like I don’t even know him. Do you know him?”

“Safu doesn’t want us to know him. He’s just her boytoy. I don’t even think I’ve seen the guy over here in daylight hours.”

“She does seem to just use him for sex,” Shion mused, tapping his heels on the cupboard below the counter. “I asked her last week if he’s her boyfriend, and she laughed. I still don’t know how to interpret that.”

“That means he’s not her boyfriend,” Nezumi replied, adding water to the icing.

“You’d probably laugh if someone asked if I were your boyfriend,” Shion countered.

“Probably.”

“But you are.”

Nezumi dipped his pinky in the glaze and licked it, looking at Shion and saying nothing, but Shion didn’t seem to be expecting him to say anything.

“Let me taste it,” Shion said, so Nezumi dipped his pinky back in and held it out for Shion, who laughed before leaning forward and sucking on Nezumi’s finger.

Nezumi let him suck for a few seconds, then hooked his pinky over Shion’s bottom row of teeth and tugged him forward while Shion giggled.

Nezumi unhooked his finger only to replace it with his lips. He raised his hands as they kissed and threaded his fingers through Shion’s hair, pulling the man closer to him and feeling Shion’s legs wrap around his back.

“You know,” Shion said, when Nezumi dragged his lips from Shion’s to kiss Shion’s neck, “we could use this icing as a substitute for whipped cream.”

“I thought it was too sticky for you,” Nezumi said into Shion’s neck.

“I never said sticky was a bad thing.”

Nezumi leaned back from him. “Oh, so you like sticky.”

Shion licked his lips. “Maybe.”

Nezumi dipped his finger into the icing again and traced his finger down the bridge of Shion’s nose, making Shion go cross-eyed as he watched.

“Hey!”

Nezumi grabbed Shion under his chin, pulled him forward, and licked up the bridge of Shion’s nose while Shion laughed, his nose shaking against Nezumi’s tongue.

“Nezumi!” he said through his laughs.

“Is your nose sticky now?” Nezumi asked, when he was done.

Shion rubbed his nose. “You’re so gross, you’re like a crazy person.”

“I am a crazy person. I didn’t warn you?”

“I don’t think you did,” Shion said, still rubbing his nose.

“Too late now, you’re stuck with me.”

“Damn you, you sneaky bastard,” Shion said, dropping his hand and grinning his stupid grin.

“Did you just call me a sneaky bastard?” Nezumi asked. 

“What are you gonna do about it?”

Nezumi reached around Shion for his phone, glanced at the timer on it. The rolls still had at seventeen minutes.

“Seventeen minutes seems like long enough to figure out a punishment,” Nezumi said, showing Shion his timer.

Shion slipped off the counter. “If the rolls burn, you can always make more,” he said, pulling Nezumi by his shirt.

Nezumi followed Shion to their bedroom. They’d had sex in the kitchen enough times to know more likely than not, Safu would walk in on them and threaten them with a knife.

In their room, watching Shion quickly shed his clothes and chastise Nezumi for not shedding his own quickly enough, Nezumi was again struck by how this was a normalcy he couldn’t bear to ever lose.

The one thing he would change about this normal was that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to accept it, to not think constantly about how it wouldn’t last—not long enough, not as long as he needed it to. But the part of his old normal he couldn’t shake was how much he hated time, how much he worried about it, how much he couldn’t stand the people who would grow older and leave him behind, ageless and alive and alone.

*

Time passed, as it always did, and then it was Christmastime, which Shion loved.

On the first of December, Nezumi, Shion, Safu, and Karan all decorated Safu’s apartment together. Safu and Shion decorated the tree, Karan baked Christmas cookies in the kitchen, and Nezumi strung lights around all the rooms.

When he finished, he went to the kitchen, resting his elbow on Karan’s shoulder and watching her shape cookies with Safu’s collection of Christmas-themed cookie cutters.

“Need help?” Nezumi asked, in the lull after “Jingle Bell Rock” ended. Shion’s phone was on the counter playing Christmas music.

“You kids can do the icing on them when I’m finished. Aren’t you on decorating duty? Did you already put up the garland and wreaths?”

“Don’t call me a kid,” Nezumi told her, letting his arm slide off her shoulder. “Let’s switch duties, I want to bake.”

“I let you take over the baking in our bakery, the least you could do is let me bake Christmas cookies,” Karan replied.

Nezumi groaned. “Fine.” He watched Karan make a few more cookies, then went to the living room to get the garland. In the living room, Shion and Safu had rearranged stacks of books to make room for the tree. Safu was rummaging through the shoebox of ornaments on the coffee table while Shion was hanging a knitted reindeer ornament.

“Is that a goat?” Nezumi asked, standing beside Shion.

“I’d like to see you knit a reindeer that good,” Safu countered.

“Did you finish hanging everything already?” Shion asked.

“The lights are enough. The garland sheds everywhere, and then I have to vacuum,” Nezumi complained.

“You shed everywhere, and we still let you around the house,” Shion said back. “But you can help us hang ornaments if you want, then we’ll do the garland after.”

“I appreciate the permission, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, going to the shoebox and pulling out the first ornament he saw. It was a picture frame shaped like a present, and it in was a picture of Shion and Rai. They wore Christmas hats, and their arms were slung over each other’s shoulders.

“Oh,” Safu said, when Nezumi turned it to face her. “We didn’t take that out of the box yet.”

“What?” Shion asked, suddenly beside Nezumi, and then he grabbed the ornament. “I meant to get rid of that.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m not hanging this on our tree,” Shion said, almost sharply.

“Okay,” Nezumi replied. “But you don’t have to get rid of it. If you don’t want to.”

Shion looked down at the picture. He rubbed his thumb over the glass covering of the photograph, and Nezumi looked away from him, then stepped away to the bins of Christmas supplies.

The garland was on top of the bin. Nezumi grabbed armfuls of it and left the living room, going to the hallway that led to his and Shion’s room first to hang it alongside the lights.

He was standing on a chair hooking the garland over the same stick-on hooks he’d put up to string the lights when he saw Shion appear in the hall. Shion stopped a foot from the chair, looked up at Nezumi.

“I don’t miss him,” he said.

“It would be normal if you did,” Nezumi said back, rearranging the strand of lights so it wasn’t blocked by the garland before he stretched to reach the next hook.

“But I don’t. I’m stupidly happy with my life right now. Don’t you know that?”

Nezumi gave up on stretching. He let the garland hang from the single hook, hopped off the chair, and dragged it until it was below the next hook, then climbed back up. “You can be happy and still miss someone.”

“Missing someone means you wish they were here. I don’t wish he was here. He’s a good man, and I did love him, and I was happy in our relationship, but I don’t wish he was here. That part of my life is over, and now I’m in this part, with you. And you’re moody and annoying and childish, but somehow I still don’t want anyone but you.”

Nezumi glanced down at him again. “How flattering.”

“Are you listening? I don’t regret any part of Rai. But I don’t regret leaving him either. I need you to understand that. I don’t know how you can still doubt it, but you do, I can see that, and I’ll say whatever I need to to make you stop doubting it.”

Nezumi jumped off the chair again, frowned up at the garland. “I think the garland will just block the lights, we should just do one.”

“The lights won’t be blocked. Did you hear anything I just said?” 

“Unfortunately, I haven’t mastered the art of tuning you out yet,” Nezumi replied, picking up the chair to take it to the kitchen, where he’d hang some of the larger strands.

“Nezumi—”

Nezumi set the chair down beside the oven and glanced at Karan, still cutting the cookie dough, before looking at Shion. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I’m not making a big deal.” 

“I just said it’d be normal if you missed the guy. You’re acting like I saw his picture and started crying,” Nezumi said, securing a strand of garland over his shoulder and stepping on the chair.

“I don’t miss him,” Shion insisted, emphatic.

“Christmastime is the time to miss lost loved ones. Especially those you have happy Christmas memories with,” Nezumi said, hooking an end of the garland over the first hook.

“He’s not a lost loved one. He’s not dead, Nezumi.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I really don’t. What, do you want me to miss Rai?”

Nezumi tried to weave the lights with the garland with difficulty. “I really don’t care. I can recount the order of events if you don’t remember. I saw your little couple photograph, I was unfazed, and then you lost your mind and started telling me how much you love your life right now.”

“I haven’t lost my mind, I just don’t want you thinking stupid things.”

“I’m not the one thinking stupid things,” Nezumi said back, getting off the chair again, taking it to the next hook, stepping back on. His neck was starting to hurt from looking up at the ceiling, and he rolled his head from side to side, wincing, before stringing the garland over the next hook.

“So what, I should apologize for worrying about your feelings?” Shion snapped.

Nezumi looked down at him. “Why are you getting so upset?”

“I’m not upset!” Shion shouted, throwing his hands up and stalking out the kitchen.

Nezumi watched him walk away, then glanced at Karan, who was looking at him. “What the hell is wrong with your son?”

Karan smiled. “I think he gets antsy when it comes to you and Rai. He doesn’t want you to think he’s ever loved anyone but you.”

“Mom, I can hear you! And that’s not true! I don’t care that Nezumi knows, he should know, he was the one who dumped me, maybe I will put up that ornament just so he knows what’ll happen if he dumps me again!” Shion shouted from the living room.

“He holds onto grudges for a ridiculously long time,” Nezumi told Karan.

“Stop talking about me!” Shion shouted.

“Love you too!” Nezumi called back.

“Stupid idiot,” Shion muttered, and Nezumi laughed. He got off the chair, lifted it to the next hook, and continued to hang the garland.

*

On Christmas, Nezumi and Karan closed the bakery early, at three in the afternoon. They cleaned out the kitchen, then took the subway together to Safu’s apartment. When Nezumi slid his key card to open the door for Karan, he was surprised to smell something cooking.

“What’s going on?” Nezumi asked, walking in after Karan.

“In the kitchen!” Shion called.

Nezumi and Karan went to the kitchen, where Shion was wearing an apron and standing in front of a pot.

“Are you cooking?”

“Yes, I am,” Shion said. “How was the bakery?”

“I was going to make dinner,” Nezumi said, walking tentatively to the pot and bending to sniff it.

“Your bangs are going to get in the stew!” Shion protested, pushing him away. “I wanted to cook since I was home all day anyway, and you showed me how, and I think I’m ready to make something on my own.”

“As your teacher, I can firmly say you’re not ready.”

“Go away. Even better, run out and get some wine if you want to do something useful, I think we’re out.”

“Where’s Safu, why can’t she get it?”

“She’s in her room with Charlie.”

“Charlie?” Karan asked, craning her neck. “That boy she’s been hiding?”

“Safu invited Charlie to Christmas dinner?” Nezumi asked. Nezumi wasn’t even sure Safu and Charlie had ever gone out to dinner on a non-holiday. When they saw each other, it seemed to be exclusively in Safu’s room and only at night.

“I don’t know, but he’s here. I haven’t even seen her since I got up this morning.”

“Then how do you know he’s here?” Nezumi asked, picking up the wooden spoon Shion had put down and licking the sauce from it. It wasn’t bad, from what he could tell, but he remained suspicious. Shion’s cooking lessons rarely went well.

“She texted me that he was here. They must have snacks in her room because she hasn’t been in the kitchen, and it’s nearly six. They’d be starving,” Shion said, grabbing the spoon from Nezumi. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

“I barely got a proper taste,” Nezumi replied.

Shion pushed his shoulder. “The wine, please.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, leaving Shion and Karan in the kitchen and heading back out of the apartment.

He was in the liquor store two blocks away comparing prices of wines when his phone vibrated. He unearthed it, saw a text from Shion.

_Can you pick up toilet paper? xx_

Nezumi sighed but sent a thumbs up emoji and grabbed a bottle of wine. He checked out, then walked to the convenience store where he grabbed two packs of toilet paper and a box of super-strength mints he knew Shion liked to keep him alert when he worked late at the lab. He was checking out when his phone vibrated again.

_I left my laptop in my campus office. Get it for me and I’ll make it up to you?? ;) xxxx_

“Dammit, Shion,” Nezumi snapped, shoving his phone back in his pocket, then having to unearth it again to text Shion that he’d get his damn laptop.

So Nezumi went to the University of Tokyo’s campus, but when he tried the door to the building of Shion’s office, it was locked.

Nezumi set down his grocery bags, pulled out his phone, and called Shion.

“The door is locked,” he said, when Shion picked up.

“What door?”

“The door to your office.”

“Oh, oh, that—I didn’t text you? My laptop is at home, I just found it.”

Nezumi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your Majesty, do you want me to kill you? It’s freezing, and you’ve got me running around with toilet paper, which is an annoyingly bulky thing to be running around with.”

“I’m sorry! Come home, I don’t need anything else.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nezumi asked.

“I’m very sure,” Shion said, and Nezumi could hear his grin over the phone.

“You’re lucky it’s Christmas, or I’d be mad right now.”

“I do love Christmas.”

Nezumi hung up on him and started making his way back home. He wasn’t sure, as he hadn’t looked at the time, but he could guess at least an hour had passed since he’d left.

It occurred to him, as Nezumi looked up at the chandelier as a reflex after getting off the elevator at their floor and walking to their apartment door, that Shion had purposely been keeping him out of the apartment for an hour. Nezumi couldn’t imagine why, as he’d been out of the apartment all day.

Nezumi was wary as he slid his keycard and let himself into the apartment. He kicked the door closed behind him, toed off his boots, and carried the packs of toilet paper and wine to the kitchen, which was empty.

“Anyone home?” Nezumi called.

“Hey,” Safu said, coming into the kitchen. She wore—not one of Charlie’s shirts, which was her usual attire when she surfaced briefly from her bedroom when Charlie was over—but a green dress.

“You look beautiful,” Nezumi told her, and she smiled in a surprised way.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Charlie here? And are we supposed to dress up?”

“I sent Charlie home, you just missed him. And you can wear whatever you want,” Safu said, opening the pot on the stove and sniffing it. “I thought Shion was making dinner.”

“He made that. Where is he, anyway?”

“He made that? It smells incredible, are we sure he didn’t order something and put it in a pot? He and Karan stepped out to get your gift.”

“What gift?” 

The front door opened at that moment, and Shion nearly ran in, then stopped short on seeing Nezumi in the kitchen.

“Damn it, you beat me, I wanted to beat you. Close your eyes! Safu, cover his eyes!”

“What?” Nezumi asked, just as Safu pressed her hands over his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”

“Just go along,” Safu said.

“I should have sent you to the lab for something, but I thought if I added another errand you really would kill me,” Shion said, and Nezumi could tell from the sound of his voice that he was moving through the living room.

“Is this a surprise? I don’t like surprises,” Nezumi said, while Safu continued to press her palm to his face.

“It’s a surprise,” Safu confirmed.

“Shion!” Nezumi shouted.

“Don’t worry, he asked me to come with him to make sure you’d approve of the surprise, and I approved.” It was Karan’s voice now, in front of Nezumi.

“What is it?” Nezumi asked, turning his head under Safu’s palm to where he thought Karan was standing.

“You’ll see, he wants to wrap it.”

“Did we even need toilet paper?” Nezumi demanded.

“We always need toilet paper,” Safu said calmly, and then her hand left Nezumi’s face. He blinked in the absence of it to see Shion carrying a wrapped box into the living room.

“Come in here,” he called.

“Karan, I’m trusting you when you say you approved it,” Nezumi said, following her and Safu into the living room.

“Maybe don’t trust me too much,” Karan said, smiling almost apologetically.

“Sit,” Shion commanded, standing on the opposite side of the coffee table from the couch. He’d set his box on the coffee table. It was wrapped in the green wrapping paper with red ornaments on it—Nezumi had used the same one to wrap Safu’s and Karan’s and Shion’s gifts, which were under the tree.

“Why am I the only one opening something?” Nezumi asked, sitting on the couch between Karan and Safu.

“You have to open this one now, you’ll understand after you see what it is,” Shion said, and at that moment, the box moved.

Nezumi stared at it. “Did that just move?”

“No.”

The box moved again.

“Is there an animal in there?” Nezumi asked slowly.

“Just open it,” Shion said.

“I don’t want an animal,” Nezumi told him.

“A pet,” Safu corrected. “When you own an animal, it’s called a pet.”

Nezumi couldn’t be bothered to glare at her, as he was staring at Shion. “Shion, we’ve talked about this.”

“We’ve talked about dogs,” Shion said. “You don’t like dogs.”

“That is correct, I don’t. Is there a dog in there?”

Shion bit his lip. “No.”

“Is there an animal like a dog in there?”

“You could always skip the twenty questions and just open it,” Safu piped up.

“Is this really a gift for me, or is it for you?” Nezumi asked, still ignoring Safu.

Shion stepped forward, then looked down at the coffee table in surprise, seeming to just remember it separated him from Nezumi. “It’s for you. I know I work long hours, and I hate that you always stay up for me at night because then you only get a few hours of sleep before you have to get up for the bakery, and I thought, maybe you stay up because you don’t want to sleep alone, so this is—this is so you don’t have to sleep alone.”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a child.”

“Nezumi, don’t be angry. Give her a chance.”

“Her?” Nezumi demanded.

Shion pointed to the box, which was still moving about. “Look, she’s excited to meet you.”

Nezumi had no desire to meet this animal, but the thing was moving the box only more vigorously, almost desperately so. If it suffocated in there, that would certainly ruin the holiday.

So Nezumi reached out, picked up the box—which jolted in his hands—and placed it on his lap. He tore open the wrapping paper to reveal a shoebox with holes poked into the top. Nezumi glanced up at Shion, who had his hands laced together and in front of his lips.

“I’m so excited,” he whispered.

“Don’t be,” Nezumi said back, then opened the box.

Inside was a cat. It was immediately identifiable as such, but even so, Nezumi found himself doubting it. He hadn’t known cats could be so small. It stood in the very center of the box, staring up at him, and it couldn’t have been larger than one of his fists.

“Did you do some kind of experiment on it?” Nezumi asked, still watching the cat.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s too small.”

“Too small for what?” Safu asked.

“She’s a kitten, Nezumi,” Shion said.

“Are they always this small?” Nezumi asked, leaning away until his back pressed against the couch when the kitten crept up to the edge of the box closest to him.

“She’s so cute!” Safu all but squealed, which was the first time Nezumi had ever heard her voice at such a decibel.

“She’s yours, so you get to name her. But I was thinking, if you needed a suggestion…maybe Noboru?” Shion said, hesitant.

Nezumi didn’t want to take his eyes off the creature in case it attempted to climb out of the box, but he did so quickly enough to glance at Shion and see that his expression was hopeful.

“Is that a reference to something?” Safu asked.

“ _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles,_ ” Nezumi answered for Shion. The first Haruki Murakami novel Nezumi had suggested Shion check out at the library when he was a kid still, and they used to make their library visits together. After finishing the novel, Shion had asked about the cat, the point of it, what kind of symbol it was supposed to be, and it was the first time Nezumi refused to answer one of his questions. _You’ve been reading literature for a few years now. You can’t rely on my interpretations anymore. It’s time you came up with your own._

“What is that?” Karan asked.

“A book,” Shion said, while Nezumi eyed the cat again. It was completely black with one white front paw that it placed on the edge of the box, clearly considering coming out.

Nezumi lifted the lid of the shoebox he held, showed it to the cat. “Don’t make me,” he warned it, and in response, it put another paw on the edge of the box, then leaped out before Nezumi could enclose it again.

Its leap took it onto Nezumi’s lap. He couldn’t feel its weight at all.

“What do you think?” Shion asked.

It had black irises so large they nearly took up the whole eye, but Nezumi could just make out the sliver of yellow around each iris.

“I think it’s too small,” Nezumi said, watching the cat start to climb up his stomach.

“She likes you.”

The cat was nearly on his chest now and stopped its careful plodding. It leaned its head closer to Nezumi’s, sniffing, whiskers twitching.

“Oh my god, she’s just the cutest thing,” Safu all but moaned.

“Can we keep her?” Shion asked.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the cat. He had no desire to live with an animal. But even though he didn’t know the lifespans of cats, he could guess the thing wouldn’t live past ten years, maybe twenty at most. Hardly a moment of Nezumi’s life, but a good fraction of Shion’s.

The cat was for Shion anyway. They both knew that, no matter what Shion tried to claim. And if Nezumi couldn’t give Shion a normal family, the very least he could do was tolerate some animal. At least it was small and didn’t seem to have a smell.

“Nezumi, you’re freaking her out, stop staring at her,” Safu said.

“They’re bonding,” Karan said, and without looking at her, Nezumi could hear the laugh in her voice.

Nezumi looked up, only at Shion. “Not Noboru. If you want to go with literature, it’ll be called Pluto.”

Shion blinked at him, then grinned so wide Nezumi almost didn’t mind when the cat touched his chin with its nose, a cool and brief and startling contact.

“Are you saying—that means we can keep her, right? That’s what you’re saying?” Shion asked.

“I don’t care that you claim it’s my cat. It’s your responsibility. I’m not going to worry about feeding an animal,” Nezumi warned him, having to look away from him when the cat moved again, this time to push the top of its head under Nezumi’s chin.

Nezumi reached up, intending to shove it off of his chest, but it looked too small to survive any kind of push, so instead he found himself cupping his hands around it.

It didn’t even scramble away. It let him hold it, and in his palms, the thing only seemed tinier. It was warm and seemed to vibrate, like the whole thing was full of heartbeat. A racing heartbeat, probably frightened, and Nezumi worried it would have a heart attack.

“It doesn’t like me, you take it,” he said, holding it out to Shion, who leaned over the coffee table to let Nezumi transfer the animal into his own cupped palms.

“She does like you,” Shion said, immediately cradling the cat to his chest the moment it was in his hands, but the cat started scrabbling.

“Aw, she misses Nezumi,” Safu said.

“It does not,” Nezumi countered, appalled when Shion bent down to set the thing on the floor, as immediately the cat ran to his legs and tackled his socked foot.

“Pluto as in the planet?” Karan asked, while the cat attempted to climb up Nezumi’s jeans.

Nezumi stood up and stepped away in an attempt to free his leg, but the cat clung on.

“Nezumi’s being cruel. Pluto is a cat from an Edgar Allan Poe story,” Shion explained. “At first, the narrator of the story loves his cat, but then he becomes an alcoholic and paranoid and spends most of the story convinced the cat is evil and trying to kill it. In the end, he kills his wife by mistake when attempting to kill the cat. He hides his wife’s body inside the wall, but unknowingly seals the cat in the wall as well. The cat’s wailing from inside the wall alerts the police to the wife’s corpse.”

“That’s horrifying,” Safu said.

“That’s Edgar Allan Poe,” Shion said.

“This thing is possessed,” Nezumi complained, having walked around the living room with the cat refusing to unlatch from him.

“You can’t name her after that story,” Safu objected, when Nezumi stopped trying to shake the cat from his leg, as it had climbed up his jeans to his knee, and he worried a fall from that height might hurt it.

Nezumi leaned down, pulled the cat off his leg, and lifted it to eye level where it looked calmly back at him.

“She doesn’t even squirm with Nezumi,” Karan said, wondrously.

“She trusts him,” Shion said, simply, as if this was not surprising to him at all but entirely what he’d expected.

Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the cat. “Are you so stupid, Pluto?” he asked it.

The cat _mrrowed_ back in response, which made Shion and Safu and Karan all erupt in praise and laughter and coos of admiration, but Nezumi barely noticed them.

It seemed Shion was right. The animal trusted him. It reminded Nezumi of Shion as a kid, Shion who’d asked Nezumi to be his babysitter, who’d taken an instant liking to Nezumi despite Nezumi’s initial wariness around him.

The cat was just as dumb as Shion.

Nezumi eyed the cat warily now, wondering how else it would prove to be like Shion. Would he find himself becoming fond of the cat despite his own misgivings? Would he find himself caring for the cat more than he thought he’d ever care for anything? Would he find himself dreading the day the cat died?

Nezumi almost dropped the cat but snapped himself out of his thoughts in time to get control of himself.

Of course, he wouldn’t feel any of that about the cat. It was just a cat.

“If you really don’t like her, I’ll take her back. A coworker’s cat had a litter, that’s where she’s from. She’s ten weeks old,” Shion said, standing in front of Nezumi now.

Nezumi lowered the cat to his chest, held it there and watched Shion look at it, his face softening, his smile instant as if it was a reflex, as if he didn’t even know it was there.

“You know your wish is my command, Your Majesty. We’ll keep it,” Nezumi heard himself saying, and Shion’s smile grew, which was silly, really.

They both knew Nezumi would have kept it. They both knew that if Shion asked, whatever Shion asked, Nezumi would say yes. 

*

On New Years’ day, Nezumi’s self-assigned birthday, Shion came with him to visit the same tattoo artist who’d given him his tattoo. She didn’t normally work on New Years’ day, but Nezumi had explained to her his plan for his tattoo to be an accumulating thing when he first discussed with her, and she’d excitedly insisted on giving him a new petal on the first of each year.

Nezumi sat where the artist directed him, and Shion hovered beside him, flipping through the artist’s portfolio and offering running commentary.

“Wow, look at this one! Oh, look at _this_ one! No, wait, _this_ is my favorite.”

“Your Majesty, maybe allow your thoughts to be internal just this once,” Nezumi advised.

The artist smiled, lifting the needle. “I don’t mind it. No one can get enough praise, can they? I’m ready now, can I have your arm?”

Nezumi stretched out his arm, and the artist took it, examined her previous work for a moment before turning on the needle, which whirred quietly.

Beside him, Nezumi was aware of Shion shutting the portfolio. “Does it hurt?” he asked, the moment the artist placed the needle to his skin just above his elbow.

“No worse than that cat of yours sticking her claws into my leg in the middle of the night,” Nezumi replied.

“She’s yours. And she’s showing you how much she loves you. It’s scary how much she loves you, actually. It makes me feel a little rejected, she only ever follows you around.”

“Trust me, I’d prefer if she switched allegiances. Do you know how hard it is to take a shower with that maniac trying to climb in with me and then losing her mind every time she gets wet and then trying to come back two seconds after she runs out? Or to walk with that creature running around my feet all the time? I’m warning you, I’m going to step on her one day.”

“You better not, Nezumi,” Shion warned.

When the pain changed from a sharp stinging to a duller ache, Nezumi glanced at his arm, saw the artist wiping his arm down.

“Are you done?” he asked, amazed.

“One petal is much easier than one hundred twenty-nine. Happy one hundred thirtieth birthday, by the way,” the artist said.

Nezumi examined his new petal to give himself an excuse not to say anything.

“Maybe I should get one,” Shion said, after taking Nezumi’s wrist and twisting his arm to look at the new petal himself.

“Of what?” Nezumi asked, pulling his arm free from Shion’s hold so the artist could cover it with lotion before taping a bandage over it.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. Maybe a portrait of you and Pluto.”

Nezumi paid the artist while Shion laughed at his own stupid joke, then pulled on his jacket—carefully over the tattoo-ed arm. He thanked the artist again, and then he and Shion were heading home.

It was freezing. Nezumi hunched his shoulders and tucked his hands in his pockets. A few seconds later, Shion’s hand was in one of his pockets.

“What are you doing?” Nezumi asked, as Shion extracted his hand.

“I’m holding your hand, I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept.”

“It’s freezing,” Nezumi complained, while Shion pushed his fingers through Nezumi’s.

“My hand is warm,” Shion replied, which was true, but that meant only Nezumi’s fingers and his palm against Shion’s was warm, while the back of his hand was forced to endure the biting wind.

Still, Nezumi didn’t pull his hand away. The walk to the subway station wasn’t that long, anyway.

*

By mid-January, it was time for Nezumi’s second dose of Shion’s “cure.” Again, the IV bag took about five hours to empty into Nezumi’s body in the same room where he’d gotten his first dose in Shion’s lab. During this time, Nezumi finished _The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao_ and the first few pages of _White Teeth._

“How is it?” Shion asked, nodding to _White Teeth_ as Nezumi scooted to the edge of the bed to sit with his legs hanging over it so Shion, standing beside the cot, could take the IV needle out the back of Nezumi’s hand.

“The writing style is interesting. I haven’t gotten far enough to decide how I feel about it. You’ll have to give me your opinion.”

“I don’t have time to read anymore,” Shion said, now placing a cotton swab and a band-aid over it on Nezumi’s hand.

Shion had laid beside Nezumi on his cot while the IV had seeped into him, but instead of reading, he’d been working on his laptop.

“Doesn’t that upset you?” Nezumi asked, finding cat hair on the sleeve of his sweater—there was cat hair everywhere, these days—and picking it off.

“A little. Work’s just busy now, I’ll have more time soon.”

“That’s what you always say.”

Shion had retrieved a little flashlight from the nightstand and was flashing it in Nezumi’s eyes. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“The same.”

“Nauseous?”

“Not yet.”

Shion clicked off the flashlight and picked up Nezumi’s wrist, pressed his fingers to the side of it.

“How’s my pulse, doctor?” Nezumi asked him.

Shion just looked at him, counting, Nezumi presumed, before he released Nezumi’s wrist and replied, “Steady, normal. Ready for bed or did you want to keep reading?”

“I’ll keep reading, but I’ll brush my teeth now,” Nezumi replied, sliding off the mattress and following Shion to the bathroom.

While they brushed their teeth, Shion continued to watch Nezumi, who spit and rinsed his mouth before questioning him.

“What is it?”

“You’re not tired?” Shion asked him.

“Should I be?”

“Yes. You’ve slept an average of four to five hours the last thirty-one days. Probably longer than the last thirty-one days, but I’ve only been keeping track since a week before Christmas.”

Nezumi blinked at him while Shion walked around him to the toilet to pee.

“You’ve been keeping track of how many hours I sleep?”

“I’m pretty sure you have insomnia, even though you claim not to.”

“I’m fine,” Nezumi replied, over the toilet’s flush.

“You don’t pay attention to your body, so I have to. That’s all I’m doing. This is an experimental drug, Nezumi. I need to know everything it’s doing to you.”

“It’s not doing anything to me.”

Shion washed his hands without replying, then left the bathroom. Nezumi peed, and when he was finished with the bathroom, he found Shion already in the cot and flicking through _White Teeth._

Nezumi pulled off his t-shirt and jeans and slipped onto the cot beside him. He pulled his pillow down so it was no longer against the headboard and laid on his side, propping his cheek up on his palm, his elbow digging into the thin mattress.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

Shion said nothing back, eyes still on the book, so Nezumi reached out, pinched Shion’s nose. Shion looked up at him then, seeming startled.

“What?”

“What do you think about the book?” Nezumi asked.

Shion closed it and rolled onto his side, copying Nezumi’s pose, cheek on his palm as well. With his free hand, he touched Nezumi’s tattoo on his shoulder.

“When you showed me this, when you got on your knees and asked me to give you another chance, you promised you’d spend my whole life with me. You promised,” he said quietly.

Nezumi tried to read Shion’s expression, couldn’t. “I remember.”

“So you can’t die first,” Shion said, eyes flicking from Nezumi’s tattoo to his face.

“How would I die first?” Nezumi asked, after a moment.

Shion said nothing, then took his fingers from Nezumi’s skin and rolled onto his back. Nezumi watched him stare up at the ceiling.

“Shion,” Nezumi said, when he continued to be silent.

“The rats,” Shion finally whispered.

Nezumi wondered if the man was losing it. “What?”

“The rats with insomnia died.”

Nezumi gave himself a moment to absorb the words. “How many rats had insomnia?”

“Four out of five hundred.”

“You injected five hundred rats with this drug? How’d you even get five hundred rats?” Nezumi asked.

Shion’s eyes slid to his briefly, then back to the ceiling.

“Did all four die?” Nezumi asked.

“Yes.”

“After how many treatments?”

“All four of them died two weeks after the third treatment.”

“Maybe they just died of old age. I don’t think rats can live that long.”

Shion closed his eyes. “It wasn’t old age. They died violently.”

“Violently? What does that mean? Like how?” Nezumi asked, pushing himself up until he was sitting.

“Those four were the first rats to die,” Shion continued, eyes still closed and not answering Nezumi’s question.

“Shion. Look at me.”

After a few seconds, Shion opened his eyes.

“Do you want me to stop taking the drug?” Nezumi asked.

“If your insomnia persists, yes.”

Nezumi stared at him.

Shion sat up then, crossed his legs and faced Nezumi. “One hundred fifty-seven of the rats started sleeping less after the first treatment, but then their sleeping patterns when back to normal after the second. The insomnia persisted after the second dose with only four of them. The four that died.”

“That died violently,” Nezumi reminded.

Shion nodded.

“You’re not going to tell me what violently means,” Nezumi said.

Shion shook his head.

Nezumi sighed. “Okay. I’ll pay more attention to how much I’m sleeping. All right? You could have told me this before.”

“I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“The thought of dying doesn’t freak me out,” Nezumi replied.

“Violently,” Shion reminded.

Nezumi smiled wanly. “Even so.”

“You can’t die before me,” Shion said, almost angrily.

Nezumi laughed. “I won’t.”

“I’m serious.”

“I won’t,” Nezumi said again, this time not laughing, but Shion only looked more worried, as if Nezumi had said instead, _I will._

“I don’t know how to do it,” Shion said, his fingers knotting in the sheet.

“To do what?”

“To watch you die. I’ve spent my whole life knowing I’d die first. So it has to be that way. And I know that’s not fair, and I know everyone in your life always dies before you do, I know it destroys you, and I know my death will, too—but I can’t be fair with this. You taught me to be selfish, didn’t you?” Shion demanded, but he didn’t wait for an answer, instead kept barreling on. “You taught me to protect myself, so that’s what I’m doing. Promise me you won’t die first.”

Nezumi blinked at him, still absorbing his small speech. “Is that a serious request?”

“I already told you I’m serious.”

“I could die at any moment. I could get hit by a car walking across the street. The people in Tokyo drive like maniacs. How am I supposed to promise you that?” Nezumi asked, keeping his voice even so it was clear one of them was being rational.

“You don’t believe you can die at any moment,” Shion said back.

“Of course I can.”

“You can’t. You know you can’t,” Shion said, as if Nezumi was being absurd by saying otherwise.

Nezumi did not continue arguing. It was clear to him what was happening. Shion was afraid, and fear made people irrational. That was all this was. Fear that Nezumi would die first.

Nezumi could understand that. Nothing terrified him more than Shion’s death, the certainty of it—the inevitability that it would come first.

So Nezumi leaned forward and took Shion’s hands in his—having to pull them free from the blanket first to do so—and told him, completely seriously, “I promise you, I will outlive you.”

It was an easy promise to make. Not easy because it was what Nezumi wanted—there was nothing he wanted less. Easy because it wasn’t a promise at all. It was their inescapable truth.

*

The next morning, Nezumi made it to the bathroom before he started vomiting, knees digging into the tile of the floor. Shion crouched beside him, rubbing his back until he finished.

Even when everything was out of him, Nezumi still felt sick. He flushed the toilet but kept his head hung over it, one hand holding his bangs off his forehead and the other gripping the top of the toilet tank, as otherwise he thought he might collapse.

“Nezumi,” Shion said, a few seconds after Nezumi had only been breathing over the toilet instead of vomiting in it.

“Mmm?” Nezumi groaned.

“You have to tell me what you’re feeling,” Shion said gently.

“Like shit.”

“More specific, if you can.”

Nezumi shook his head in the toilet. His stomach felt coiled too tightly, and his throat burned, but that was from the vomiting. He felt as if there was still something terrible inside him that needed to come out but wouldn’t. Movement of any kind—including talking—made it worse.

Slowly, Nezumi moved his hand from his bangs to place his forearm against the seat of the toilet, then let his forehead rest against his arm so that he didn’t have to exert any effort to hold his head up. He stared down into the toilet bowl and hoped that, what with this being a scientific lab, they kept their toilets incredibly sanitized.

“The insomniac rats vomited too,” Shion said, after a moment. “But so did three hundred and eleven of the other rats that were fine.”

Nezumi closed his eyes. He wanted to fall back asleep so he couldn’t feel the nausea that remained bottled in him, refusing to come out.

“If it’s any consolation, a number of the rats had worse side effects. Eighteen had persistent diarrhea for the duration of the first three doses. Forty-seven broke out in these pus-filled hives that lasted usually around seventy-two hours after each dose. Seven lost all of their hair, though coarse patches started to grow back after—”

Nezumi made the effort to lift his head out of the toilet. “Shion,” he said, hearing the rasp of his own voice. “You’ve got to shut up about the rats.”

Shion frowned at him, reached out to tuck his bangs behind his ear. “At least you’re not among the one point four percent of rats that lost their hair. That’s the side effect I was most worried about.”

“Not the persistent diarrhea?” Nezumi asked, returning his head to the toilet bowl.

“Bald, Nezumi. They were completely bald,” Shion said.

Nezumi laughed into the bowl. To do so was even more painful than to speak, but he couldn’t help it.

He could feel pressure against his shoulder, guessed it to be Shion’s forehead butting against him. “I’m sorry my cure is making you sick,” he said quietly.

“Before I met you, I spent probably ninety percent of my mornings vomiting in my toilet,” Nezumi replied, after taking a few breaths to prepare himself to speak. It wasn’t as painful as it had been a minute ago, he didn’t think, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Did you spend any percent of time completely hairless?”

Nezumi smiled at the toilet water. “No, so I won’t forgive you if that happens.”

“I won’t forgive myself either.”

Nezumi closed his eyes again. The terrible feeling in his stomach was lessening, he was sure of it now. Soon, he’d feel well enough to lift his head from the toilet, to stand and brush his teeth and wash his face and get dressed and let Shion do all the tests he needed to before they’d leave the lab and return home. Nezumi could already envision it, Shion insisting he take it easy today since it was the day after his dose. They’d sit on the couch and drink tea and watch movies or cooking shows if Safu was home. Maybe pizza boy Charlie would come over, and they’d play cards—he’d started coming over in the day since the new year and had introduced them all to poker, which Nezumi found himself extremely good at.

Nezumi didn’t really care what they ended up doing that day. He knew Shion would stay with him, that he’d taken the entire week off work to closely analyze Nezumi’s immediate physical reactions to the dose and watch out for side effects. Having a week of all of Shion’s time made anything—including the terrible feeling inside Nezumi that was hardly even terrible anymore—worth it.

*


	33. Chapter 33

Time passed, as it always did, but now it passed with Shion fastidiously monitoring Nezumi’s sleep schedule. After a week of Nezumi keeping this sleep log, with Shion frowning at each entry Nezumi made, Shion bought him a band to wear around his wrist that would apparently track his sleep. Nezumi didn’t trust it, which Shion blamed on his age. _You’re from the twentieth century, you have an archaic aversion and fear of technology,_ he’d informed Nezumi while strapping the tracker on his wrist and instructing him to never take it off except for his plays.

The device sent all of Nezumi’s sleep data—and his heartrate, the steps he took, and the calories he burned a day, amongst other invasive information—to Shion’s laptop. After two weeks of being tracked by the thing, Nezumi walked into the kitchen after taking a shower to find Shion in the living room on his laptop. He could guess that Shion was analyzing his data even before he walked to the couch—with Pluto running around his feet in a way he’d become accustomed to—and peered at Shion’s laptop screen.

“When’d you get back from the university?” Nezumi asked, sitting on the couch beside Shion and reaching down instinctively to pick up Pluto, who would start _mrrowling_ incessantly and clawing at his sweats if he didn’t. He placed Pluto on his lap before leaning against Shion’s side to watch him scroll through graphs documenting his heartrate.

“Ten minutes ago,” Shion said. It was a Tuesday night, and Shion had been teaching all day. “Why are you home?”

“Skipping rehearsal.”

“You’re heavy, don’t lean on me,” Shion told him.

Nezumi leaned closer, prodded Shion’s shoulder with his chin. “Don’t you get tired of looking at the same thing every day?”

“You slept for less than four hours for eighty-two percent of the nights since we got you the Fitbit.”

This was not new information. Every day since he’d bought Nezumi the tracker, Shion had been informing of Nezumi of similar such statistics.

“I feel fine, Your Majesty.”

“The insomniac rats probably felt fine.”

“I’ll stop taking the drug.”

Shion closed his laptop and leaned back from Nezumi in order to look at him fully. “Less than one percent of the rats had insomnia after the second dose. Why did you have to get it? What’s wrong with you?”

Pluto _meowed,_ likely in protest to Shion raising his voice at Nezumi—the cat was peculiarly protective. Nezumi picked her up and cradled her against his chest to calm her. “You’re mad at me for having a side effect?”

“I’m mad at you for having a side effect that is a certain precursor to your death. We’ll have to stop the cure. And it works, Nezumi, but your stupid body has to go and reject it.”

Pluto made a wailing sound until Nezumi scratched her behind her ears. “You’re upsetting the cat.” 

“That cat is infatuated with you, it’s impossible not to upset her,” Shion snapped.

“Do you think I want to reject the drug?”

“What do you care? You don’t even think it’ll work.”

Nezumi lowered Pluto from his chest back onto his lap, keeping his hands around her tiny body so she wouldn’t panic. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want it to work. I have to be skeptical, Shion, I have to be doubtful. I’d have gone crazy by now if I let myself hope for anything other than the life I’ve been living for a hundred thirty years.”

Shion looked at Nezumi for a long moment. “So now you’re okay with giving up.”

“I don’t want you to spend your whole life in that lab trying to make a cure for me. I like having you around, you know. You already work long hours, and that’s fine, I understand you love your work. But if you go back to tweaking that cure on top of that, we’ll barely see each other. Don’t you know I get lonely without you?” Nezumi asked, raising his eyebrows at Shion, whose features softened.

“You want me to think you’re joking, but I know you’re not,” Shion said.

“I am joking. I have Pluto now, I’ll never be lonely again.”

Shion reached his hand out in front of Pluto to let her sniff it. She only let Nezumi touch her without getting her approval first—everyone else, which generally meant Safu and Shion and occasionally Charlie, had to first let her sniff and then await her decision.

Pluto didn’t take a swipe at Shion nor try to bite him. This meant he could pet her, and he did, scratching behind her ears with two of his fingers.

“There’s studies that imply animals can sense illness in people,” Shion said, still looking at Pluto.

“I’m not ill.”

“You’re not normal. Your body works differently. Maybe Pluto can sense that, and that’s why she’s so protective of you.”

“If anything, the cat should be protective of you. You’re the fragile one. What is she doing trying to protect a guy who can’t die?” Nezumi asked, glancing down at Pluto, who seemed to sense his gaze—something else she did eerily often. She ducked her head away from Shion’s fingers in order to peer up at him.

“We got her after you started the cure. Maybe she knows it’s doing terrible things to you,” Shion said quietly.

“I’m not in any pain, Shion. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Shion’s eyes flicked between Nezumi’s. “Yes, you would,” he said, not angrily. “We have to stop the doses.”

Nezumi nodded.

“I’ll keep an eye on your insomnia. If it persists, I’ll have to make a drug that will wipe out any trace of the cure from your system.”

“Can you do that?”

“Of course. It won’t be easy, but if I have to save your life, I’ll do it.”

Nezumi didn’t doubt this.

Shion sighed. “I thought my cure would work,” he said.

“I know.”

“It was supposed to work.”

“I am genuinely thankful, you know. I never in my life—my stupidly long life—would have thought anyone would do for me what you’ve done,” Nezumi told him.

“Tried,” Shion said, and Nezumi squinted at him until he continued. “I didn’t do anything for you. I tried. And failed.”

Nezumi picked Pluto off his lap and set her carefully on the floor, ignoring her ensuing _meows!_ when he sat back up, focusing only on Shion. “You did everything for me,” Nezumi told him.

Shion reached out, tucked Nezumi’s bangs behind his ear. “Sometimes I hate it when you’re nice to me. If you were cruel, it’d be easier to disappoint you.”

“You don’t disappoint me.”

Shion said nothing. He let his hand fall from Nezumi’s hair, then traced the pad of his thumb across Nezumi’s lips, a gesture Nezumi couldn’t ascribe meaning to, but maybe there wasn’t any meaning. Maybe Shion just wanted to touch him, just had the urge, the way Nezumi often had the urge to touch Shion, to reach out to him, to make sure he was still there.

*

“Come on, you stupid animal, get the sock, go get it,” Nezumi said, pointing across the living room to where he’d thrown one of Shion’s balled-up socks—Pluto’s favorite toy.

Pluto looked where Nezumi pointed, then turned her head back to Nezumi, giving him a look that seemed to say, _Why don’t you get it?_

Nezumi sighed and lowered from his crouch so that he was sitting on the floor. He crossed his legs and watched Pluto climb over his ankles to settle between his thighs.

“I can’t tell if you’re stupid or lazy or just don’t like to be told what to do,” Nezumi told her—quietly, because Safu and Shion were both sleeping.

It was four in the morning. Shion had come home from the lab at midnight, when Nezumi had been baking apple pies. Nezumi had joined Shion in bed after the pies finished, been fucked by Shion, then laid and watched Shion fall asleep before slipping out of bed, Pluto at his heels.

“You want to sleep, don’t you?” Nezumi asked Pluto, who blinked blearily up at him. Nezumi scratched behind her ears. “Go ahead. You don’t have to stay up just because I am.”

Pluto yawned in response, and Nezumi smiled wanly. It annoyed him, sometimes, how cute the animal was. He watched her fall asleep, jealous at how easy she made it look.

After a few minutes, Nezumi carefully cupped his hands around her and lifted her, holding her against his chest as he headed to his and Shion’s bedroom. He opened the bedroom door slowly, blinked in the dark of the room and let his eyes adjust to it before walking around the bed to his side. Shion laid on his side, his body curled, back to Nezumi’s empty side. Nezumi leaned down to place Pluto against Shion’s spine, knowing the cat preferred to sleep against a body than anywhere else.

With Pluto placed, Nezumi returned to the door, stopping at the doorway to look at Shion’s sleeping face before he did so. Shion had his arms folded, hands just below his chin. On his wrist was Nezumi’s own sleep tracking band, which Nezumi had wrapped around his arm just after Shion had fallen asleep—just as he’d done the past week.

It was the end of February, six weeks since he’d gotten his second dose of Shion’s cure and two weeks since they’d had decided he wouldn’t get a third dose. Still, Nezumi had been sleeping less and less, and barely at all for the previous week. He figured it shouldn’t matter—he wasn’t going to get another dose of the cure, and it wasn’t worth worrying Shion when Nezumi knew he’d be just fine. His sleep patterns would even out, he was sure—his body just needed to realize it wasn’t getting any more of the cure, and it’d go back to normal. Until then, Nezumi would put the sleep tracker on Shion’s wrist. It was simpler that way.

Nezumi closed their bedroom door quietly, then went to the kitchen. He hadn’t decided yet if he would bake brownies, or sesame cookies, or matcha tiramisu—a new recipe he was experimenting with. Maybe he’d just practice new icing designs, try out different flowers until the alarm he set on his phone went off. When it did, he would clean up and go to bed and, of course, put the sleep tracker back on his own wrist before Shion woke.

*

Nezumi reached down, strung his fingers through Shion’s hair, and tugged.

“Stop. I told you to stop,” he said, pulling harder on Shion’s hair when the man didn’t take his mouth off Nezumi’s dick.

“Ow,” Shion said, once he finally surfaced. He rubbed his head after Nezumi released his hair. “That hurt.”

“You’re fine,” Nezumi said, scooching up the bed so that he was no longer lying on his back with Shion between his knees, but sitting against the headboard with his knees pulled up to his chest. He reached for the blanket that’d been shoved to the side of the bed and yanked it over himself.

Shion sat up and wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “It’s okay. It happens to everyone.”

“Shut up,” Nezumi snapped.

“You’ve been alive for a hundred thirty years. You’re saying this has never happened to you?”

“Has it happened to you?” Nezumi demanded, staring at the ceiling instead of looking at him.

“Well, no. But I haven’t been alive as long as you have. I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.”

“It’s never happened to me before,” Nezumi told the ceiling shortly.

“Never? Even when you were taking opiates?” Shion pressed. “A common side effect of a lot of drugs is erectile dysfunct—”

“I’m not on drugs right now, am I?” Nezumi asked, stopping his glare at the ceiling to turn it on Shion. “Do we have to have a conversation about it?

Shion crawled forward, and Nezumi wanted to back away from him, but he was right up against the headboard and had nowhere to go.

“It’s just one time. It’s okay. Really, Nezumi,” he said, and Nezumi fought the urge to hit him.

“If you tell me it’s okay one more time, I’ll smack you,” Nezumi warned.

Shion didn’t seem to be listening. “Maybe it’s me. I can up my game. Or we could try some toys. What are you feeling? Are you more in the mood for the cock ring or the beads or the vibrating plug?”

Nezumi watched Shion leaned over the side of the bed to rifle through their nightstand, then resurface holding one of their vibrators.

“This might be just what you need,” he said cheerfully, while Nezumi glared at him.

“You just had your mouth around my dick for ten minutes. You think a piece of rubber is going to have a better effect?” he asked flatly.

“It can’t have a worse effect, seeing as my mouth had no effect at all.”

“Give it a rest, Shion. If you’re so desperate to come, fuck yourself with that. I’m going to take a shower,” Nezumi said, throwing the blanket off himself and hauling himself off the bed. He didn’t bother pulling on his boxers before leaving their room even though Safu was home, but he didn’t run into her on his way to the bathroom. Soon, he was in the shower, shivering because he hadn’t bothered to wait for the water to warm.

It had only just started shifting away from freezing when Nezumi heard the bathroom door open. The shower curtain slid open next, and Shion stood in front of him.

“Can I have privacy?” Nezumi demanded.

Instead of giving him privacy, Shion reached into the shower spray and turned it off.

“Seriously?”

“The rats with insomnia had erectile dysfunction.”

Nezumi pulled the curtain closed. “I don’t have any kind of dysfunction, it’s one fucking time—”

The curtain whipped open again. “It’s a side effect of serious lack of sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body will produce less testosterone, and that can decrease libido and cause erectile dysfunction.”

“If you say erectile dysfunction one more time—”

“Is there something you don’t understand?” Shion shouted.

Nezumi gave up on trying to close the shower curtain again. He stood naked and wet and cold and _not_ hard and said nothing, alarmed at the volume of Shion’s shout, which seemed to fill up the entire bathroom.

“The rats died, Nezumi, and I get that’s your end goal here, but they lasted two weeks past the third dose. That’s six months and two weeks after I started administering the cure. It’s the middle of March, so we started you on the cure five months ago. That gives you less than two months to live—”

“Your goddamn rats died after the third dose, which I haven’t had, and we already decided I’m not doing a third dose—”

“What if they were already dying after the second dose? What if they were dying after the first? What if all they needed was a drop of the cure in their systems before their death sentences were set? What do you know about any of it? And here you are, getting pissed because your pride is wounded by a soft dick!” Shion shouted, then tugged the curtain closed again so hard Nezumi was surprised it didn’t rip of the rod.

A second later, the bathroom door slammed closed.

Nezumi stood in the shower for another few seconds, then stepped out. He hadn’t washed his hair or body, but he’d taken a shower that morning anyway.

He grabbed his towel and didn’t bother drying himself, just wrapped it around his waist for the short trip back to the bedroom. There, Shion was opening his sock drawer, where they put Pluto whenever they had sex. Her love of ripping apart Shion’s socks calmed her, which was a better alternative to locking her out of the room, where she’d shout at the door until let in. It wasn’t an option for her to have free reign in the room when they had sex—the first time they’d attempted that, she’d shredded Shion’s arm and leg before Nezumi managed to unlatch her from him.

Shion set Pluto onto the floor, across which she scampered quickly—easily maneuvering the stacks of books—to wind around Nezumi’s dripping wet ankles where he stood in the doorway.

Nezumi stepped around her to let himself in the room so he could close the door behind himself.

“You’ve been sleeping more. It doesn’t make sense,” Shion said, staring hard at him by the dresser.

“I don’t have erectile dysfunction,” Nezumi told him. He couldn’t admit to putting the sleep tracker on Shion’s wrist. Nothing good would come out of that.

“You’ve never had a problem in bed. You said it yourself. Never, in a hundred thirty years. You expect me to think this is completely unrelated to the cure?”

Nezumi unwound the towel from his waist to rub it roughly over his skin until he felt dry enough to put on the boxers Shion had only pulled off of him twenty minutes before.

“The only other option is that your erectile dysfunction is a symptom unrelated to sleep deprivation, but then I’m not sure why it would only occur now. It’d make more sense if it had started happening immediately after your doses.”

“I don’t have erectile—I don’t have that,” Nezumi said sharply, reaching down to pick up Pluto—a reflex now whenever she started whining as she did then.

Shion put his hands on his hips. “Explain it then. First time you can’t get hard in a hundred thirty years. Explain that to me.”

“You’re the one who said it wasn’t a big deal! You’re the one who said it was okay, it happens to everyone—”

“I was trying to remain optimistic! But then you said it never happened to you, and that toys wouldn’t help, that nothing would help, which means you’re not even in the mood, and you’re always in the mood!”

Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “I’m used to fucking someone new each night. I’ve been fucking just you for several months straight now. I can’t get tired of it? I can’t want a night off?”

“A night off?” Shion spluttered. “What, sex with me is some tedious job? I’m forcing you to do it? Really?” Shion didn’t wait for a reply. He walked angrily across the room until he passed Nezumi and let himself out the door, slamming it behind him.

Nezumi stood as he was, fuming. He had the urge to throw something, and remembered he still cradled Pluto, so he set her down on the bed before allowing his hands to curl into fists.

“I don’t have erectile dysfunction,” he told her.

Pluto _meowed_ in a way that seemed unconvinced.

“What do you know? You’re a goddamn cat,” he snapped, then grabbed his t-shirt off the corner of the bed and let himself out the room, pulling the shirt on as he headed to the kitchen.

Both Shion and Safu were in the kitchen—Safu on a stool at the counter reading and Shion at the sink filling the kettle with water.

“Heard you have erectile dysfunction,” Safu said without looking up from her book as Nezumi walked in.

Nezumi crossed his arms. “Have I told you how irritating I find you?”

“Not today I don’t think,” Safu said, glancing up from her book then and smiling at him.

Nezumi ignored her and went to Shion, who was now at the stove.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Shion said, before Nezumi could speak.

“I’m sorry I said all that. Obviously, I’m not tired of you, or fucking you, or anything. You just drive me crazy sometimes, you know that? You’re convinced I’m going to die like your rats, and I’m not.”

“You really shouldn’t say things like that with confidence, it gives the impression that you have some sort of evidence behind your words,” Shion replied stiffly.

“What’s your evidence? I can’t get hard one time and suddenly I’m destined to die?” Nezumi countered.

“And the insomnia?” Shion demanded.

“The insomnia is gone. Or are you ignoring the data?” Nezumi lifted his wrist to point at the tracker.

Shion looked at it, and his shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Look, I feel shitty enough about my inability to perform without you blowing it out of proportion into some melodramatic death curse.”

“I’m not trying to blow it out of proportion,” Shion said weakly.

Nezumi took in Shion’s somber expression, then bent down to pick up Pluto, who of course had followed him to the kitchen to protest at his feet.

“The reason she’s so obsessed with you is because you allow it. If you ignore her, she’ll stop trailing you and whining,” Shion said quietly.

Nezumi ignored him and took Pluto across the kitchen, where he sat on a counter stool beside Safu.

“It’s impossible to read with the two of you arguing,” Safu said, looking up from her book. She held out her hand for Pluto, who now sat on Nezumi’s lap, to sniff. Pluto didn’t lash out, so Safu pet her.

“It’s on you for not having trained yourself to tune us out by now,” Nezumi told her.

Safu placed her book on the counter. “What were some of their other symptoms? Those rats of yours, the insomniac ones. What else happened to them?” she asked, turning to Shion, who was still by the stove.

“Most of their symptoms were side effects of sleeplessness. It doesn’t surprise me Nezumi didn’t have a lot of those symptoms, his body is used to lack of sleep.”

“I’m sleeping seven to eight hours now, remember,” Nezumi said.

“Unless you figured out a way to rewire your tracker,” Safu said.

Nezumi didn’t even look at her. “I haven’t.”

“Have you?” Shion asked.

“I just said I haven’t.”

“Nezumi, promise me.”

Nezumi looked at Shion evenly. “I promise I haven’t rewired the tracker.”

Shion looked at him for so long Nezumi was certain Shion could see that, in some way, Nezumi was hiding the truth, but then Shion nodded.

Nezumi should have felt relief, but all he felt was a twist of his stomach. He didn’t want to lie about the sleep tracker. He didn’t want to lie to Shion at all.

“Other than side effects associated with insomnia, there was just one other symptom that showed up one week before the deaths of the rats,” Shion said, but before he could say more, the kettle started whistling behind him.

“Want to bet on what it is?” Safu asked quietly, while Shion turned to attend to the kettle.

Nezumi rubbed Pluto’s single white paw between his thumb and forefinger, a habit he’d fallen into. Her paws were incredibly small and soft, and the pads of them calmingly smooth. “You go first.”

“Fetid hives all over your body.”

Nezumi frowned and released Pluto’s paw. “It’s not my body, it’s the bodies of the rats. I’ll go with hiccups.”

“Hiccups? That’s lame.”

“Hiccups that won’t go away. That can be irritating,” Nezumi insisted.

Safu rolled her eyes. “It’s fetid hives, I can feel it.”

“It’s not fetid hives,” Shion said, in front of them now with mugs of tea in both hands. He placed them on the counter for Safu and Nezumi.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, leaning on his stool to kiss Shion, who didn’t pull away—a good sign, Nezumi decided.

“I wanted chamomile,” Safu said.

“You’re welcome,” Shion told her. “And their tails fell off.”

“Excuse me?” Nezumi asked.

“A week before the insomniac rats died—violently,” Shion added pointedly, raising his eyebrows at Nezumi, “their tails fell off.”

“Seriously?” Safu asked.

Nezumi stared at Shion, who watched him back.

“If you’re somehow hiding your insomnia, now would be a good time to tell me. I don’t know how a tail falling off will replicate itself in you, but I don’t think either of us want to find out,” Shion told him.

Nezumi considered him. Shion hadn’t been able to save the insomniac rats. He’d said he could make a drug to erase the effects of the cure from Nezumi if he needed to, but Nezumi didn’t want that. He didn’t want Shion to save his life.

“I’m not hiding anything, Your Majesty,” Nezumi replied. He lifted his mug to his lips and took a sip. It was hot enough still to burn his tongue, but he swallowed his sip without wincing.

He knew how to hide pain. And if it stopped Shion from worrying, at least for however long they had left before whatever inevitable fate would befall him, Nezumi would hide anything.

*


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the sporadic updates lately, i've been very forgetful! :)

At the pet store while looking for a toy that Pluto might accept—Shion had started complaining about the holes in all his socks—Nezumi found cat leashes and immediately abandoned his toy search to purchase one. He was taking Pluto on her first ever walk and found himself on a street that looked familiar, though he couldn’t place why until he was standing in front of the Java Monster. It was the coffee shop where he’d met with Rai what had to be months, maybe years before.

He’d only just realized this and turned around to look at the school across the coffee shop where Rai worked when he heard a familiar voice.

“Nezumi?”

Nezumi turned again to see Rai standing in the doorway of the Java Monster, holding open the door from the inside with an iced coffee in his hand.

“I thought that was you through the window. I come here to work on lesson plans. Want to have a coffee?” Rai asked, as if he and Nezumi were old friends.

Nezumi nodded his chin at Pluto, who was sniffing the edge of the sidewalk. “Don’t think they let animals in there.”

Rai stared at Pluto as if he’d never seen a cat before. “Is that yours?”

“Pluto.”

“What?”

“Her name,” Nezumi said.

“Excuse me,” a woman said, standing inside the Java Monster and clearly wanting to walk out, but Rai somewhat blocked her exit.

He stepped to the side, still holding open the door but less in her way. Immediately, the woman—a young woman, young enough to be one of Shion’s students, even—saw Pluto.

“Oh my god, that is the cutest little kitty I’ve ever seen!” she all but shouted, and then she looked up at Nezumi. Her lips opened on looking at him, and she quickly swept her gaze up and down his body. After a few seconds, she seemed to realize she was staring and composed herself. “Um, hi, sorry, is it okay if I pet him? Or her?”

Nezumi shrugged. “She’s mean, but you can try. Let her sniff your hand first.”

She blinked at him, then nodded and crouched in front of Pluto, extending her knuckles tentatively. Pluto sniffed, then ran to Nezumi’s feet.

“Don’t take it personally, she hates everyone,” Nezumi said.

The woman giggled, clearly not taking it personally and tucking her hair behind her ears. “Oh, well, thanks anyway,” she said.

“Sure,” Nezumi said, and he watched her walk off. She glanced back behind her shoulder, saw him watching, and blushed before looking straight again.

Nezumi stopped watching her to see Rai still holding open the door.

“You have a cat,” Rai said.

“Looks like it.”

“You don’t seem like someone who’d have a cat. And Shion’s a dog person. Unless—But you’re still together, right?”

Pluto started _mrrowling,_ so Nezumi bent to pick her up, wrapping the leash around his hand. He’d gotten an extra-long one so she’d have the option to explore, but she didn’t seem to have any desire to stray far from Nezumi’s legs.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, on standing and seeing Rai still looking at him as if waiting for an answer.

Rai nodded. “Right. Of course you are. So it’ll be your one-year anniversary soon.”

Their year anniversary was the eleventh of April. In two days. It didn’t surprise Nezumi that Rai was aware of this. It was the same day Shion had broken up with him.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said again.

“I guess you’re doing well then. And he’s—he’s happy,” Rai said, his gaze dropping from Nezumi’s and settling on Pluto, whom Nezumi held against his chest.

At night, in the few hours Nezumi did manage to sleep, Pluto curled always on his chest.

_If she’s not hearing your heartbeat, she can’t sleep,_ Shion said once, when Nezumi woke to find Shion sitting up in bed and staring at him, Pluto still asleep over his heart. _It’s like she’s guarding your heart, or sitting vigil, making sure it doesn’t stop in the middle of the night. Doesn’t it scare you, her behavior? I think it scares me._

“He’s happy,” Nezumi confirmed.

“That’s good,” Rai said. Nezumi suspected he meant it. He was the kind of guy that wanted those he cared about to be happy even when he wasn’t. It was infuriating.

“Listen, it was good to run into you,” Nezumi lied, “but we should get going.”

“We?” Rai asked, then laughed abruptly. “Oh, you and the cat. Pluto, was it?”

Nezumi unwound Pluto’s leash from his wrist and bent to place Pluto back on the ground.

“She’s cute,” Rai said, looking down at her. “Well, see you, then. You can tell Shion I say hello, if you want.”

“Sure,” Nezumi replied.

“Bye, Nezumi.”

Nezumi walked past Rai, heading back home. Pluto ran alongside him to keep up with his strides. A block from home, Nezumi had to pick her back up to carry her, as she’d started _meowing_ in a way that seemed to Nezumi a clear indication of her exhaustion.

“That was Shion’s ex,” Nezumi told her quietly, once he had her cradled against his chest. “If we see him again, you have to show your loyalty to me by hissing at him, or yowling, or something aggressive and threatening.”

The cat _meowed_ back.

“And if I die, which of course is not going to happen, but if I am by some miracle like those insomniac rats of Shion’s and it does happen, and Shion tries to get back with Rai, you understand you’ll have to persistently claw at his perfect skin until he retreats. Right?”

Pluto _meowed_ again, and Nezumi smiled, pressed his lips to her soft body briefly. He’d just reached his and Shion’s building and pressed the key card to the reader before opening the door.

“Don’t worry, none of that will be necessary. I can’t die. I told you that, remember? So you don’t have to be so protective of me.”

Pluto did not respond.

“We’ve talked about this before, Plu. It worries Shion. He’s a nut that thinks animals can sense things. He thinks you’re sensing that I’m dying. So you’ve got to ease up on the hovering.” Nezumi led them to the staircase, then headed up.

Pluto seemed to have fallen asleep in his arms. It was just as well. As intelligent as she often seemed, it wasn’t like the cat could understand him. And just as she couldn’t understand him, she couldn’t predict his death. 

She was just a cat. Not an omen nor a magical being with the intuition to sense impending demise. A cat—an admittedly cute one with intense loyalty—but nothing else.

*

Two days later, it was Nezumi and Shion’s one-year anniversary—their second one—and Nezumi planned for it to go much better than their first. He spent the day in the bakery baking Shion a cake between taking care of normal bakery orders and a commission he had for some kid’s birthday party, which involved a tiered cake with an elaborate fondant icing jungle scene on top.

It was almost close, and Nezumi was crafting the lion’s mane—the last touch—when he heard Shion’s voice from the front of the bakery.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Happy anniversary! He’s finishing up a commission in the back. The client is coming to pick it up right before we close, so don’t distract him, hon.”

“I won’t,” Shion said, but in a few seconds the kitchen door was swinging open, and Shion was beside Nezumi. “Oh, wow, this is so cool.”

“Look, don’t touch,” Nezumi warned, glancing up from attaching the lion’s mane to its head to watch Shion hover over the cake.

“The giraffe is so cute. And the panda! Ooh, the detail on the cheetah is really remarkable.”

“Move so I can put on the lion, he’s the last one.”

“It’s really amazing, Nezumi, that kid is going to love it, and you’ll probably have his friends’ parents all commissioning you for their kids’ birthdays after this.”

“I refuse to make one more icing animal,” Nezumi said, carefully placing the lion on the edge of the jungle.

“I guess you didn’t have time to make an anniversary cake for me, what with doing this,” Shion said, not quite as nonchalantly as he might have intended.

Nezumi glanced at him. “Don’t be so needy, it’s not an attractive quality.”

“I can’t help it, you’ve been making me cakes my whole life, I got used to it.”

Nezumi straightened up, examining the cake to make sure there was no animal out of place before looking fully at Shion. “Of course I made you a cake. It’s right there beside the mixer,” he said, and Shion whipped around.

“Nezumi! And you decorated it, it’s beautiful, how did you have time?”

“I always have time for Your Majesty. Grab me a box, let me bring this up front, the client will be here any minute.”

“What kind is it?” Shion asked, handing Nezumi a box, which Nezumi carefully placed the kid’s birthday cake into.

“It’s layered strawberry and chocolate. Get the door for me.”

Shion held open the swinging door, then the door that led to the front room, where Karan had started wiping down tables.

“Karan, the order is done. I’ll leave it here and start cleaning the kitchen,” Nezumi told her.

“No, no, you guys go on, go celebrate your anniversary, let me clean up today,” Karan said, waving her dishrag at them.

“I made a mess back there, there’s no way I’m leaving it for you. Just do me a favor—if the guy who picks up his cake wants to thank me in person, tell him I’ve gone home.”

Karan wiped her hands on her apron. “Why you refuse to accept your customers’ gratitude is beyond me. But all right, if that’s what you want.”

“Thanks,” Nezumi said, before returning to the kitchen with Shion following.

“You’d think you’d be used to people adoring you after being Eternal Eve for over a century,” Shion said, sitting up on the counter beside his cake with a fork while Nezumi started putting mixing bowls in the sink.

“I am used to it. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”

“Who doesn’t enjoy compliments?” Shion asked as he gouged a forkful of his anniversary cake and shoved it between his lips. “Holy shit, this is amazing,” he said, mouth full.

“Depending on who’s giving the compliments, I can enjoy them very much,” Nezumi told him, stepping away from the sink to stand between Shion’s knees. When Shion sat up on the counter, he was a few inches taller than Nezumi, so Nezumi had to tilt Shion’s face down with a hand under Shion’s chin in order to kiss him.

Nezumi tasted the chocolate and strawberry of own cake, more so when Shion opened his lips, as Shion hadn’t swallowed his mouthful as yet.

“You’re right, this cake is amazing,” Nezumi said, licking his lips when he drew back from Shion after having extracted a piece of cake from his mouth.

“You’re gross,” Shion said, laughing and wiping his hand over his lips.

“And you’re lazy. Help me clean so we can finish up faster and you can fuck me.” After the first time Nezumi couldn’t get hard a month before, Nezumi had gone out and bought pills that he didn’t mention to Shion. He took them secretly before they had sex, which—alongside Nezumi continuing to put his sleep tracker on Shion’s wrist at night—seemed to have abated Shion’s previous concerns that Nezumi was taking the same path as the insomniac rats.

“You’re not going to take me to a fancy dinner?” 

“I already treated you to a fancy one-year anniversary dinner. Do you not remember? There were roses, a rotating restaurant, it was pretty memorable. You even got teary-eyed, if I recall.”

Shion smiled. “The night you broke my heart doesn’t count.”

“It doesn’t?” Nezumi asked, feigning surprise.

Shion wrapped his legs around Nezumi’s waist. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I figured since we already did the fancy restaurant disaster, we could do a night in. I ordered a fondu pot online, thought we could try that. What do you think?”

“Did you really?”

“Sure, got the skewers and everything. Some website said it was a romantic activity.”

Shion’s smile stretched. “You Googled anniversary ideas?”

“So what if I did? The internet is a resource, isn’t it? When I don’t use it, you call me old and scared of technology. What do you want from me?” Nezumi said, frowning, as Shion laughed and wrapped his arms around Nezumi’s neck. “What?” Nezumi demanded, when Shion didn’t stop laughing.

Shion shook his head—still laughing, louder now—and ducked his forehead against Nezumi’s shoulder.

“I don’t like being laughed at,” Nezumi told him, feeling Shion shake against him.

After some seconds, Shion managed to calm himself. “I know you don’t,” Shion said, voice muffled until he lifted his head again, revealing he was still grinning widely. “I love you like crazy, you know.”

Nezumi eyed him warily, the words having caught him by surprise even though, of course, he knew they were true, and Shion had said them before. “I know,” he said, after a moment.

“You’re supposed to say it back.”

Nezumi’s hands were on Shion’s waist. He slid them around to Shion’s lower back, then pulled the man closer to the edge of the counter, closer to him. “I love you like crazy, Shion.”

Shion’s smile faded, and then he was just looking at Nezumi seriously, almost intently, the way he did—with all his focus, a look that used to terrify Nezumi. Now there was no look he craved more.

“Say it again,” Shion said.

Nezumi leaned closer until his lips skated Shion’s jaw, then moved closer still so he could lay the words in Shion’s ear. “I love you more than I meant to, even after I gave myself permission to fall for you,” he admitted, a whisper.

Shion leaned back from him, just a few inches. His hand was around the side of Nezumi’s neck, tilting Nezumi’s face up when Shion kissed him.

He stopped kissing Nezumi too soon, pulling away even as Nezumi leaned forward.

“Say it again,” Shion said again.

Nezumi felt his lips lift. “Don’t be greedy.”

“I am greedy. Say it again.”

Nezumi lifted his hands to cup Shion’s face. He looked him hard in the eye. “Pay attention, I won’t say it any more times than this. Are you listening?”

Shion nodded as much as he could in Nezumi’s hold.

“I love you so much it’s no longer love. No one else has ever felt the way I do. I invented something else entirely to feel for you when love wasn’t enough anymore,” Nezumi told him, completely seriously, because it wasn’t a lie.

He’d been alive for a hundred and thirty years. He was capable of things regular people were not. It was incredibly likely it wasn’t just his body. It was incredibly likely it was his mind, too, capable of emotions regular humans could not even entertain, could not fathom. Emotions like those in literature, emotions that were supposed to be fiction—as deep and overwhelming and vast as they were, they weren’t meant to exist in real life.

But Nezumi didn’t follow the rules of real life. He didn’t know how to. He couldn’t stop himself from breaking them.

Shion’s red eyes—not the eyes of a normal human, but the eyes of a mutant, just like Nezumi was—were hard on Nezumi’s.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

Nezumi shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t know the words. There aren’t words to say what I need to say to you.”

Shion seemed to think about this. “Then kiss me,” he said, and Nezumi could do that, so he did.

*

Because it was their anniversary, Safu agreed to vacate the apartment for two hours that night and take Pluto, too, so Nezumi did not even try to stifle himself. He heard his own shouts filling the room as Shion fucked him in that way he did, that anatomically precise method, overwhelming and terrifying at times in the way it pulsed pleasure through Nezumi’s entire body.

He knew a part of Shion worried—even with the tracker’s data skewed, even with the erection pills Nezumi took in secret—that Nezumi would might die like those insomniac rats. Nezumi himself did not feel any worry, though at times during his sleepless nights, he found himself doubting his usual certainty that nothing could kill him.

But now, any possibility that Nezumi had entertained that his life was finally in danger was extinguished with Shion thrusting into him, his hand in Nezumi’s hair pulling, his lips on Nezumi’s, bruising.

Nezumi had never felt more alive in a hundred and thirty years.

*

Shion had just informed Nezumi it was five minutes to midnight when he heard the front door opening, and then Safu’s call—

“I’m home! You can continue what you’re doing, but on silent mode, please!”

Hardly three seconds later, there was the intense sound of Pluto’s yowling outside the room, and then the scrabble of her claws against the door.

“Can you get it?” Nezumi asked faintly, too spent to move. He laid diagonally across the bed, naked and with his sweat only just starting to dry over his body, though his roots and hairline were still soaked.

Shion had been lying somewhere near him, but not close enough to touch. Their sweat-slicked bodies had slapped together enough times, and now they were cooling, relaxing, recovering.

Nezumi heard Shion’s groan and felt the mattress shift beside him, and then he heard Shion opening their bedroom door.

“Hey, Plu, did you have fun with Safu?” Shion asked, while Pluto’s yowling got louder.

She was too small to jump onto the bed, so when Nezumi was on the bed without her, she simply shouted until someone lifted her. Now, she proceeded to yowl until Shion must have picked her up, as a second later she was scrabbling onto Nezumi’s bare chest.

“Ow, claws, you stupid cat,” Nezumi muttered, twisting his head and laughing when Pluto scrambled to his face.

Beside him, the mattress sank again. “I know it’s dumb to be jealous of a cat, but ours makes it hard not to,” Shion grumbled.

Nezumi pushed Pluto off his face. She plodded around his stomach before settling in her normal position over his heart. He turned his head to look at Shion, who laid on his stomach, his cheek on his arm and his face turned to Nezumi.

“You’re the one who bought her for me.”

“I was naïve back then,” Shion said wistfully, and Nezumi laughed. “I’m too lazy to look at the clock, but our anniversary is probably over,” he added.

“We’ll have others,” Nezumi said.

Shion blinked as if this hadn’t occurred to him. “One day we’ll have been together for two years,” he said slowly, as if he could barely fathom it.

“I’m guessing it’ll happen about a year from now,” Nezumi said, but Shion didn’t smile.

He lifted his head from the mattress, propped himself up on his elbows, and looked down at Nezumi. “Another year of you,” he said, in a way Nezumi couldn’t read.

“Will that be too unbearable?” Nezumi asked.

“And another year after that,” Shion said, as if Nezumi hadn’t spoken.

Nezumi watched Shion look at him. “At some point, it won’t be amazing anymore to have another year of me,” Nezumi told him quietly.

“I don’t believe you,” Shion said back.

Nezumi didn’t believe himself either. No year would be unremarkable with Shion. It wasn’t even years—every single day, Nezumi was amazed to find Shion still there. Every single night, a part of Nezumi didn’t trust Shion to still be there the next morning.

Shion laid back down, this time closer to Nezumi, touching him now, which Nezumi was fine with. His sweat had cooled almost completely, and now he felt cold.

“We should shower,” Shion said, closing his eyes.

“Yeah,” Nezumi said, watching Shion, knowing he’d fall asleep soon.

Nezumi himself, though physically worn, knew he would not fall asleep for several hours more. But he would put his sleep tracker on Shion’s wrist tonight the way he had been doing every night.

Over his heart, Pluto let out a little sigh. Nezumi strung one of his hands through Shion’s hair, and with the other he traced his finger around the curl of Pluto’s little body. He closed his eyes and waited for them both to fall asleep, not minding at all that he himself would be awake long after them.

Not sleeping gave him more time, time to be with Shion, time to be with Pluto, too, now part of their little family. Nezumi was relieved not to have to waste time with sleep. Really, insomnia was the best thing that could have happened to him.

*


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took so long to get up! i got busy with life and forgot i hadn't finished posting all the chaps! there'll be one more after this :)  
> hope anyone who's still reading enjoys!

“Get the fuck up! Get up, Nezumi!”

Nezumi woke abruptly, which was probably the only way to wake when being violently shoved.

He sat up and pushed his bangs out of his eyes in time to see Shion shove him back down and pin him onto his back again, hands on his shoulders and nails digging into his skin. 

“I could kill you,” Shion hissed.

Nezumi blinked blearily at him. “Isn’t it too early for roleplay?” he asked groggily. “What time is it?”

“What do you care about time? I thought you hated time. Or was that a lie, too? Are you so full of shit that you can’t speak one single word without it being a lie?” Shion shouted, releasing Nezumi abruptly and jumping off of him.

Nezumi sat up again, this time warily, watching Shion haul himself off the bed to pace the foot of it, not seeming to notice that he was naked—or noticing and not caring.

Nezumi himself was not naked. It was the morning after their anniversary. After Shion had fallen asleep, Nezumi had slipped out of bed, put on boxers, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and transferred his sleep tracker to Shion’s wrist.

It was at this thought that Nezumi momentarily stopped breathing. He stared at Shion’s wrist, but the tracker wasn’t there—but Nezumi couldn’t remember taking it off, couldn’t remember putting it back on his own wrist.

He stared down at his arms. The tracker wasn’t on him either.

“Looking for this?” Shion shouted, and Nezumi knew before looking up that Shion would be waving the tracker at him.

Nezumi sat up farther, then onto his knees. “Shion—”

“What? What? What could you possibly say? You’ve been putting the tracker on me for weeks, haven’t you? You have, admit it, admit it, your insomnia never went away, you fucking piece of lying _shit!_ ” Shion shouted, picking up and hurling a book at Nezumi as he shouted.

Nezumi didn’t duck in time, his reflexes dulled by the fact that he’d only been awake for half a minute, and _The Count of Monte Cristo_ —a hardcover—hit him on the shoulder.

“Dammit, ow!” Nezumi shouted, jumping off the bed himself and holding his hands up in case Shion planned on attacking him again.

“So then, after I found this on my wrist, I did more investigating. Want to know what else I found?” Shion demanded.

“Not really,” Nezumi managed, watching Shion walk to his desk and pick up the pack of Nezumi’s erection pills, which he then tossed at Nezumi, though this was only heavy enough to make it halfway between them before landing amongst Shion’s piles of books.

Shion, perhaps not satisfied at the pill box’s lame flight, picked up another book—another hardcover, Nezumi noted with unease—and wielded it threateningly.

“I should really kill you, but why bother going through the hassle? You’re just going to die in two weeks! That’s all you have left, you know, if you’re on the same track as the insomniac rats, which you are! Two weeks, Nezumi, you have two goddamn weeks before you vomit yourself to death! That’s how the insomniac rats died, they vomited until their throats tore, and then they vomited blood, and then they kept going until they couldn’t breathe, and they suffocated, and they fucking died!”

“I’m not on the same track as the rats,” Nezumi reminded, trying to keep his voice even, as Shion appeared to be losing his mind. “They got a third dose of your cure and died two weeks after that. I haven’t gotten a third dose—”

“They died twenty-six weeks after their first dose! You’re at twenty-four weeks after your first dose!” Shion shouted.

“It wasn’t the first dose that killed them. It was the third—”

“You’re not a scientist, you’re a goddamn actor!” Shion threw the book, which Nezumi managed to hit away, the corner of the cover digging into his palm, but it was better his palm than his eye.

“Do you two mind?” Safu shouted from outside the door, and then the door swung open. “Christ, Shion, you’re naked.”

“Safu, you should go, protect yourself, he’s gone insane,” Nezumi told her, though without looking at her, as Shion had picked up another book and hurled it at him.

This one, Nezumi ducked to protect himself from. As he ducked, he found Shion’s sweats on the floor. He picked them up and threw them at Shion.

“Put these on, then you can keep going,” he said.

Shion glared at him, but he pulled on the sweats—though he did it so roughly he stumbled and nearly fell. He caught himself, succeeded in tugging them on, then pointed at Safu.

“Did you know?” he demanded.

“Know what?” she asked back, sounding thoroughly bemused.

“Nezumi’s been putting his sleep tracker on my wrist at night.”

Safu blinked at him, then at Nezumi. “You’re stupider than I thought,” she finally said.

“It’s not stupid, I did it so he wouldn’t overreact about the insomnia, it’s not a big deal—” 

“It’s a side effect to an experimental drug that’s been a precursor to death in trials one hundred percent of the time. How is that not a big deal?” Safu countered, speaking evenly, which was refreshing to Shion’s shouts despite the fact that she, too, was twisting the facts.

“Unlike the goddamn rats everyone wants to compare me to, I’m not getting doses of the drug anymore.”

“But you don’t know when the rats with your symptoms started dying. It could have been after the first dose. Or the second. Both of which you’ve had,” Safu said.

“Exactly!” Shion shouted. “I’ve been telling you this for weeks! Safu and I are both scientists, we’re both qualified and informed. You’re just an idiot, you’re not allowed to make decisions about how the drug is affecting your body!”

“An idiot? That’s nice,” Nezumi said.

“God, Nezumi! I could have been doing something, I could have had months to work on something to prevent what happened to those rats from happening to you. You’re really unbelievable, you know that?” Shion said, his hands in his hair, pulling at it, then abruptly dropping from it. “It’s no use lecturing you, you don’t ever learn, you don’t ever listen to anyone. Get dressed, we’ve got to go.”

“Where?” Nezumi asked, bewildered by the turn of events and watching Shion step to the dresser and yank out clothes that he then threw at Nezumi. He then opened his own drawers, pulled out his own clothes, and began dressing himself.

“Can you make us coffee, Safu? I’m exhausted and I’ll probably be doing all-nighters for the next two weeks,” Shion said, not turning away from the dresser.

“Sure,” Safu said, disappearing from the doorway, and then Shion peeled off his sweats, replaced them with boxers and jeans.

“Where are we going?” Nezumi repeated, still not dressing.

“The lab. I’ve got two weeks to save your goddamn life.”

“Look, I get that maybe it was the first or second dose that did it, but isn’t it more likely that it was the third dose that killed the ra—”

“ _More likely_ isn’t good enough for me,” Shion said sharply. “I can’t do those odds, okay? Now stop arguing and put on your clothes and meet me at the front door.”

After Shion stormed out, Nezumi figured he had no other choice than to do as he was told. He’d just finished dressing, pulling clusters of Pluto’s hair off his clothes as he did so, before he realized Pluto was not in sight.

Nezumi checked all the dresser drawers and the closet before he left the bedroom and found Shion standing at the counter looking at his laptop, Safu hovering behind him, the both of them speaking quickly and seemingly over each other.

“Hey,” Nezumi said, then raised his voice when neither looked up. “Hey! Where’s the cat?”

Safu glanced at him. “Shion killed her in a fit of rage.”

“Very funny.”

Safu shrugged. “I don’t know where she is, and that seems the most likely scenario.”

“In her carrier with my socks,” Shion said, shutting his laptop and putting it in his backpack, then swinging his backpack over his shoulders. “We’re going now, there’s a Tupperware with leftovers on the counter, bring it with you and eat it on the way.”

“What, why?” Nezumi asked, looking for Pluto’s carrier and spotting it by the front door.

“You’ll need energy, I’ll be drawing a lot of blood today. Come on, hurry up.”

Nezumi grabbed the Tupperware and the chopsticks on top of it and went to the front door, where he shoved his feet in his boots while Shion watched him, arms crossed and his foot tapping impatiently.

The moment Nezumi had on his boots, Shion grabbed Pluto’s carrier and yanked open the front door. Nezumi followed him out into the hall to the stairway.

“Don’t swing Pluto like that,” Nezumi told him, on the staircase. “She’ll get sick.”

Shion continued to descend quickly and swing the carrier as he went. “I really don’t give a shit about Pluto getting motion sickness right now.”

“Why are you bringing her?”

“She’s known you’ve been dying this whole time. She’s useful.”

“She hasn’t—Shion, I’m not dying. Those insomniac rats were just insomniac rats until the third dose. That’s what killed them. It wasn’t the first two doses.”

“You’ve got no evidence for that.”

“And you don’t have evidence that I’m wrong!”

Shion stopped running down the stairs so abruptly Nezumi nearly crashed into him and only stopped himself by grabbing onto the banister. “I can’t take the chance that you’re wrong, Nezumi. Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand that I have to assume you’re dying, that I have to do everything to stop that? Maybe it was the third dose that killed the rats. But what good is _maybe_ to me? Four out of five hundred rats had insomnia, and four out of five hundred rats died after twenty-six weeks of getting their first doses, and all the evidence I have is that you react to the drug the same as those four rats. That’s all I’ve got.”

“What about what I’ve got? That’s a hundred thirty years of being alive. Of not dying. Most of those years, I took too many drugs and drank too much. Do you know how many times I should have overdosed? I eat crap and don’t take care of my body, and I’ve never had any kind of illness. I can’t die, Shion. I’m not like your rats. Maybe it was the first dose that killed them, but it can’t kill me. Nothing can kill me. I promise you, Shion.”

Shion looked at Nezumi for several seconds, then said coolly, “We’ve established you’re a ceaseless liar. Forgive me for not trusting you not to die just because you promise you won’t.”

With that, he continued down the steps. Nezumi watched him, then followed, not having any other choice.

*

They’d been in the university’s lab for thirty-six hours straight—Nezumi knew because he was keeping an eye on the clock, worried about Shion, who wasn’t giving himself enough breaks to eat or sleep—before Shion said anything to Nezumi unrelated to some direction regarding his lab tests.

“I know why you hid your insomnia,” Shion said. He was hunched over a microscope, comparing Nezumi’s blood with samples of the four dead insomniac rats’ blood he’d apparently preserved.

“I know I’m not going to die and didn’t want you to panic unnecessarily,” Nezumi answered for him. He was sitting beside Shion, watching him compare samples and petting Pluto, who sat in his lap.

“No. You want to die. Even if it’s violently. Even if it’s long before me. You have a chance to die, and it’s the first chance you’ve ever had, and you didn’t want to lose it.”

Nezumi looked down at Pluto. “The cat’s hungry.”

Shion lifted his face from the microscope for the first time in ten minutes. “Deny it.”

“Deny what?”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t want to die if it’s so soon, if it’s before you’ve lived a lifetime with me.”

Nezumi stood up with Pluto. “I’ll get her something to eat. Just because you’re starving yourself doesn’t mean we should abuse our animal.”

Shion stared at him. “You lie to me all the time. You can’t lie about this?” he demanded.

“You think I want to lie to you?” Nezumi heard himself saying, not meaning to say anything. He sighed, squeezed Pluto’s single white paw between his fingers.

“Then tell the truth,” Shion said, after a long silence.

Nezumi took a breath, let it out slowly. “I’d rather vomit myself to death in two weeks than live forever. You’re right. You’re always right.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t realize that immediately,” Shion said quietly.

“I’ll bring you something to eat as well,” Nezumi said, when Shion said nothing else, and Shion didn’t reply to this, so Nezumi left.

Outside the room where Shion was working—a room in the lab Nezumi didn’t think he’d ever been in before—Nezumi looked down the blank white hall. He had no idea where he might find food. He probably wouldn’t find it. He’d probably get lost in this lab because he always got lost in it when Shion wasn’t there to guide him.

He headed down the hallway anyway. What did it matter if he got lost? He didn’t want to find his way back, to face Shion again, not after knowing he’d broken the man’s heart again. Though, really, they both should have known that was inevitable.

*

Shion basically moved into the lab, and Nezumi stayed with him, knowing the man wouldn’t eat at all if Nezumi wasn’t there to force-feed him. They’d been there for five days when Nezumi woke to find that he’d fallen asleep sitting on a desk chair in a room filled with beakers and tubes and other devices that looked right out of a sci-fi movie.

He pressed his fingers against his eyes, saw Shion immediately, as he was right where he’d been when Nezumi fell asleep watching him—behind his open laptop across the desk from Nezumi.

“How long was I asleep?” Nezumi asked groggily.

“Three hours seventeen minutes,” Shion replied, not looking up from his laptop. Not that he needed to look up, as the data from Nezumi’s tracker—now constantly on Nezumi’s wrist—would have been on his screen.

Nezumi stood up, stretched, and was about to tell Shion to take a break and come to the cafeteria with him to at least eat a piece of toast when Shion stood up too.

“I want to show you something,” he said, then walked away from Nezumi before Nezumi could reply.

Nezumi followed him but paused at the door. “Give me a second, I’ll bring Pluto.”

“She can’t come where I’m taking you. She’s asleep in the carrier, leave her, she’ll be fine,” Shion said, still walking down the hall, so Nezumi closed the door to the room they’d been in and headed quickly after him.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?” Nezumi asked.

“I had some crackers while you slept.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“You can believe what you want,” Shion said. He’d been eerily calm since Nezumi admitted to hiding his insomnia out of a desire to die like the insomniac rats had. Nezumi kept waiting for him to lose it, but Shion appeared too busy trying to save Nezumi’s life to do anything else.

“Where are we going?” Nezumi asked, as Shion led him through different hallways. It still amazed him that Shion could maneuver the building without any sort of map when everything seemed identical.

“Here,” Shion said, stopping in front of a door that might as well have been the same door Nezumi had just closed. Shion took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and opened it. It was the smell that hit Nezumi first.

“What the—” Nezumi fell silent as he stepped into the room behind Shion, vaguely aware of Shion locking the door behind him but mostly distracted by the contents of the room.

It was filled with rats. They were each in individual glass boxes mounted against the walls of the room in rows. There were easily hundreds of them.

“I’ve continued giving them the doses every three months,” Shion said, walking to one of the walls and pointing at a little label on one of the rat’s glass doors. “The labels tell you their ages. I started them all on the cure between three and six months old. They’re brown rats, which have an average lifespan of three to four years, sometimes five, in captivity. All the rats in this room are about a year old now.”

Nezumi stared at all of them. “How many are there?”

“Four hundred ninety-six.”

Nezumi looked back at Shion. “Didn’t you start with five hundred?”

“The four rats with insomnia were the only ones to die. The rest, while they’ve had an assortment of side effects, have fully recovered from their side effects by this point.”

Nezumi walked closer one of the walls. He crouched down, looking at the rats at the bottom, and found a label that aged the rat inside that cage at one year and two months old.

“In the latest tests I’ve done on all of them, they’re stats match rats aged two years old or older. Which means all the rats in this room are aging at at least double the normal rate. That’s due, of course, to their own natural aging process with the addition of the drug I’m giving them. They should all be dead of old age within a few months to a year.”

Nezumi watched the rat inside the cage in front of him walk around its little habitat, seemingly unaware that it was living half the lifespan it was supposed to have.

Shion crouched beside Nezumi. “You’re not a rat. Just because my drug worked on four hundred ninety-six rats doesn’t mean it will work on you. We’ve seen it doesn’t work on you. It’s killing you much too quickly, the way it killed the four insomniac rats. But I know everything about those four rats. I know why they were the four that died. I studied their chromosomal content after their deaths and found a short DNA sequence all four rats had in common that none of the other rats have. I’ve studied your blood and found you have that sequence, too.”

Nezumi looked away from the rat to look at Shion.

“I’ll start over,” Shion said. “I’ll find five hundred rats with that same DNA sequence, and I’ll make a new cure, and I’ll give it to them, and if it works the way this drug is working on these rats, then I’ll give it to you. But I can’t do that if you die. I promised you I’d kill you slowly. I never said I’d do it quickly. So now that I have, you have to let me fix it so that I can kill you the right way.”

Nezumi tucked his bangs behind his ears, out of his eyes. They were greasy. He’d only showered once in the five days he’d been in this lab.

“I know you think this is your only chance to die, but it isn’t. I’ll make sure you have another chance, I will. But in my way, we can have a life together first.”

Nezumi constantly found himself amazed by Shion. This room of rats amazed him. Rats that were aging at double the normal rate. Looking at them, Nezumi couldn’t tell, but he believed Shion. He knew Shion wouldn’t lie about this. He knew Shion was capable of this, something crazy like this.

“I studied the insomniac rats closely as they were dying and even afterward, so I didn’t start working from scratch when I found out you still have insomnia. Over the past five days I’ve come up with a formula for something I believe will eradicate my previous cure from your body. It’ll take me a couple more days to turn the formula into an actual drug. Will you take the drug when I develop it?”

“The new drug will stop the insomnia,” Nezumi asked, after absorbing Shion’s words.

“It will clean your body of all traces of the cure that I gave you, which means you won’t have any more of the side effects either. No more insomnia. No more possibility of dying the way the insomniac rats did. No more chance you’ll lose your tail. Well, hopefully. I don’t know if I’ll get the drug developed in time, and you have two days before the tail loss if you’re on the same timeline as the insomniac rats.”

“I don’t have a tail,” Nezumi reminded.

“At this point, I have to assume everything that happened to the insomniac rats will happen to you. I don’t know how the tail loss will look on you, so you have to be extra aware of your body for the next few days. I’ll be doing constant tests on you. But you still didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Will you take the drug to nullify the effects of the cure? I’m going to make it whether you plan to take it or not, but once it’s made, I can’t force you to take it. I won’t force you to live if you want to die. If you want to wait a week to see if you’ll vomit yourself to death like the rats, that’s your choice.”

Nezumi looked back at the rats in their cages. “Do I have to decide now?” he heard himself asking.

“No. I guess not. Come, I should get back to work, and you’ll get lost if I leave you here alone.”

Before Nezumi left the room after Shion, he took a last look around himself at all the rats. In the corner of one wall, he saw an empty cage. One of the insomniac rats must have lived there, and died there, too.

“Nezumi,” Shion called, from down the hall.

Nezumi left the room and closed the door gently behind him, hearing the click of the lock as he shut it.

*

On the day that marked twenty-five weeks after Nezumi had gotten his first dose of the Shion’s cure—just over a week after his and Shion’s one-year anniversary and exactly a week before he’d die if he followed the expiration date of the insomniac rats—Nezumi felt completely normal.

“Today’s the day you’ll lose your tail,” Shion told him in greeting, once Nezumi got back from walking Pluto around the perimeter of the lab to find that Shion had woken from his two-hour nap and was back to work.

“Unless the tail-loss was only provoked by the third dose,” Safu said. She’d joined them in the lab two days previous.

“Everyone seems to be forgetting I don’t have a tail,” Nezumi told Pluto, whom he held in his arms—she refused to walk more than ten steps outside before he had to pick her up. She seemed to be getting more attached to him with each passing day, which made Shion only more certain she was sensing Nezumi’s impending death.

“We’re almost done. In a few days, the drug will be finished. Have you decided whether you’ll take it?” Shion asked, not looking up from the drops of something he was squirting into a beaker of something else.

Shion had taken to sporting a nonchalant tone in his hourly questioning of whether or not Nezumi would take this new cure to eliminate the traces of the old cure.

“Haven’t decided,” Nezumi told him, as he always did.

“It’s annoying having to slave over something that probably won’t be used,” Safu muttered, standing beside Shion. They both wore safety goggles, so Nezumi didn’t walk too close to them, not knowing what kind of reaction would take place in that beaker of theirs.

“Safu, can you do his vitals check for me? I want to finish this to let the reaction settle before we add the other compounds,” Shion said.

Nezumi didn’t bother telling Shion he felt fine, unchanged from the day before and the day before that. Shion no longer listened to anything Nezumi said and only trusted his tests and numbers—which Nezumi supposed was fair, given his track record, though it was still mildly irksome.

Safu led Nezumi out the room, down a different hallway, and into an examination room so they wouldn’t distract Shion as he continued working.

Nezumi breathed deeply for Safu’s stethoscope, sat still for her to take his blood pressure, let her prick his finger to test his blood sugar, and completed a multitude of other tests Shion was having him do daily. After Safu wrote up her notes, she set her clipboard down and crossed her arms.

“Are you exhausted?” she asked. 

“Not really. I’m used to not sleeping much,” Nezumi replied.

“I meant, are you exhausted from being an asshole all the time,” Safu said shortly.

Nezumi leaned back on the examination table. “I don’t expect you to understand—”

“I do understand, actually. This was a chance to die, and you couldn’t pass it up, I get it. But it’s also Shion’s drug that would be doing the premature killing. I never would have thought you’d let him be responsible for your death.”

Nezumi pulled his ponytail loose and shook his fingers through his hair. He was starting to get a headache, suspected it was from tying his ponytail too tightly or having it in too long. “I wasn’t really thinking, Safu. This wasn’t some premeditated plan. At first, I didn’t want Shion to worry, so I put the tracker on him. I figured I’d eventually sleep normally as more time passed and the second dose wore off. But instead I was sleeping less and less, and I thought maybe it was going to kill me, and I had to see what happened. I didn’t think about it.”

“Now you can think about it. Now you can let Shion give you the new drug he’s making to save your life.”

“I don’t want my life to be saved,” Nezumi told her, pressing his temples.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Because I’ve been alive a hundred thirty years!” Nezumi snapped. “Sure, Shion makes me want to postpone putting a gun to my head, but I’m not quite ready to fight against death if it’s finally willing to come for me.”

Safu uncrossed her arms and stepped closer to him. “No, why are you pressing your temples? Do you have a headache?”

“It’s not a symptom, it’s just a headache,” Nezumi said, dropping his hand.

“How bad is it on a scale of one to ten?”

“One. Two, maybe. Growing with every question you ask.”

Safu looked at Nezumi closely. “It could be the lack of sleep, but like you said, you’re used to that. Where is it concentrated? Behind your eyes? Back of your head? Is it pulsing? Describe it with as much detail as possible.”

Nezumi sighed. “Behind my eyes. It’s nothing. A normal headache.”

“I can see you put some effort into being detailed, thanks for that,” Safu said.

Nezumi closed his eyes and laid back on the examination table. He’d brought Pluto with him, of course, and she crawled from beside his leg onto his chest. “Why couldn’t I be one of the four hundred ninety-six other rats?” he asked.

“Because everything has to be as difficult as possible with you,” Safu replied.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

Nezumi felt the examination table sink slightly beside his legs and opened to eyes to see Safu sitting beside him.

“I’m tired,” he admitted. “Isn’t Shion tired?”

“Of not sleeping or of trying to make you die at the perfect rate?”

“Both. The second one, mostly.”

“He’s never going to stop trying.”

“Unless I die in a week like the insomniac rats.”

“He’s not going to let you die. He says he won’t force you to take his new drug, but he will. He’ll inject you with it in your sleep if you don’t willingly take it. We both know that,” Safu said, lowering down until she was lying beside Nezumi as well, both their legs dangling over the edge of the exam table.

Nezumi supposed on some level he had known that. He closed his eyes again. “And then the whole process will start over again. He’ll try to make another cure. He will make another cure. He’ll cut the lifespans of five hundred more rats in half, and then he’ll try it on me, and it won’t work.”

“Everyone has their hobbies. Let him have his,” Safu said.

“I should have let him have his normal life with Rai. I saw him the other day, you know.”

“Rai?”

“Yeah. I was walking Pluto.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“He asked if Shion was happy. This was back when Shion thought I’d gotten over my insomnia, so I assured Rai he was happy, and it wasn’t a lie at the time. Then he told me to tell Shion he said hello.”

“Did you tell Shion he said hello?”

“Of course not.”

“How did he look? God, he was hot, wasn’t he? Shion always gets such gorgeous men,” Safu said.

Nezumi opened his eyes again and turned his head to look at her. “Charlie’s cute.”

Safu snorted. “He’s cute. He’s not gorgeous.” 

“He also worships you.”

Safu turned from looking at the ceiling to face Nezumi. “Rai worshipped Shion. And so do you.”

“Not enough to stop myself from hoping Shion’s new drug doesn’t work,” Nezumi said quietly.

Safu’s eyes creased. “I don’t get it. I never thought Shion could actually figure out a cure, but after seeing all those rats, seeing his data on them—he did it, you know. He’s making them age faster. Maybe that particular drug doesn’t work on you, but after seeing what Shion did, I really believe he can make a cure that does work on you. If I believe it—and I’ve been skeptical since the start—then I know you must. And I know you’re happy with him, I know you love him, I know you want a lifetime with him. So why not let yourself have it?”

“I won’t get a lifetime with him whether he cures me or not.”

“Why not?”

Nezumi looked back at the ceiling. “That’s not how it works.”

“That’s not how what works?”

“I don’t get to have lifetimes with people.”

Safu was silent for a long moment. “You never tried to have lifetimes with people after your family,” she finally said.

“Would you?” Nezumi asked her. He sat up then, holding Pluto so she wouldn’t fall off his chest, and looked down at Safu until she sat up beside him. “Tell me. What would you have done if you were me? We’re the same, you and I. We’re practical, we’re not like Shion. We make logical decisions based on reality, not hope, not wishful thinking. So what would you have done if you were me?”

Safu looked at Nezumi sadly. “As soon as I realized I couldn’t age, I would have taken two full bottles of extra strength sleeping pills. More if two bottles didn’t work. I would never have made myself exist as long as you have.”

Nezumi stared back at her, then laid back down. “My headache is a five now,” he said quietly.

He could feel when Safu slipped off the edge of the cot. “I’ll check with Shion to get you some painkillers. Stay here.”

With Safu gone, Nezumi curled on his side, forgetting about Pluto, who fell off his chest and plodded to sniff his face.

“It’s not a five,” Nezumi whispered to her, gritting his teeth. The pain had increased suddenly and sharply as he’d talked with Safu, but he was good at hiding pain, he was good at hiding everything. “It’s a ten. Worse than a ten.”

Pluto _meowed_ softly, pressing her head against Nezumi’s nose and lips.

“I’ll be fine,” Nezumi told her.

She _meowed_ again, loudly now. Panicked, maybe, unless that was just how Nezumi interpreted the sound, thinking Pluto shared his own feelings. But she probably didn’t—she probably had no idea that Nezumi felt, in that moment, terrified he was finally going to die.

*


	36. Chapter 36

Nezumi had not realized he’d passed out until he woke up in what looked to be a hospital room—though Nezumi suspected it was yet another room in the lab.

“Shion,” he said.

The man was standing beside him, chewing on a pen and looking at his phone.

Shion looked up. “You’re awake.” The pen fell out his lips at his words, but he didn’t seem to notice even when it clattered on the floor.

Nezumi pushed himself back on the mattress until he was sitting up, having to hold Pluto with one hand as he did so, as she was curled over his heart in her usual position.

“What happened?” 

“You had a brain hemorrhage. Instead of losing a tail, you suffered a minor aneurism. You’ve been out for a while, I did a number of scans and tests on you. I’ve concluded you have no permanent damage. That’s abnormal, but I suspect it’s due to Eternal Eve’s magic healing. I still have to ask a few questions to make sure you don’t have brain damage that didn’t show up on the scans.”

Nezumi squinted. “An aneurism? Isn’t that like a stroke?”

“How old are you?” Shion asked.

Nezumi blinked. “One hundred thirty.”

“How old am I?”

“Do the questions have to be related to age, or are you trying to torture me? You’re twenty-eight.”

“What date is it?”

“I don’t know how long I’ve been out. Last I remember, it was April something. Maybe the nineteenth? I don’t keep track of time, you know that.”

“What’s the square root of sixteen?”

“Four. Don’t ask me anything harder than that, I was never good at math.”

“What’s the first line of the last book you read?”

Nezumi sighed, thought back. “The last book I read was on the night before our anniversary. The first line is, ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’ Why don’t you guess what book it was?”

Shion stared at him for several seconds, then said, “Ford Madox Ford. _The Good Soldier._ ”

“Looks like both our brains are okay.”

“How do you feel?” Shion asked, less clinically than he’d asked his previous questions.

“Okay. Good. Tired, mostly, and thirsty. How long have I been out?”

Shion set his phone down and handed Nezumi a water bottle from the nightstand. “Two days. The drug to clean the cure out of your system is almost ready.” He picked up his phone while Nezumi drank from the water bottle and showed Nezumi the screen. It was a timer, counting down from seven minutes and thirteen seconds.

Nezumi finished the entire bottle before taking it from his lips. “It’ll be ready when that timer goes off?”

“Yeah. It’s cooling.”

Pluto stood up on Nezumi’s lap, stretched, then curled back into a ball. Nezumi resumed scratching behind her ears once she’d settled.

“Are you going to ask me if I’m going to take it?” Nezumi asked.

“I figured you’d tell me, but I can ask if you need me to. Are you going to take it?” Shion asked.

Nezumi licked his lips. They were chapped. He wondered vaguely why he didn’t need to pee if he’d been in bed for two days, then realized Shion must have given him a catheter. He didn’t much like the thought.

“Okay,” Nezumi finally said. Safu was right. If Nezumi refused, Shion would give him the drug anyway. It was easiest just to accept.

Shion narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t argue with Nezumi’s cooperation.

“Why don’t you lie down with me while we wait for it to be ready? You look tired,” Nezumi said, and it wasn’t a lie. The man looked nearly dead on his feet. Nezumi hoped Safu was around and had made Shion eat something during his panic over Nezumi’s apparent aneurism.

“I should go get it, make sure everything is ready, prepare the syringe,” Shion said, stepping back from Nezumi’s cot.

Nezumi reached out, grabbed Shion’s wrist before he could get out of reach. “Wait. Your Majesty. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Shion looked down at Nezumi’s hand on his wrist in such a way that Nezumi released him. “I’m used to being scared by you,” Shion replied, his voice distant, quiet, as if he’d already made it across the room.

When he tried to walk away again, Nezumi didn’t stop him, and then he was gone.

*

“Will it hurt?” Nezumi asked, when Shion stood again beside his cot, now with Safu next to him and a swab of cotton in one hand, a syringe in the other.

“Maybe,” Shion said. He swiped the cotton over Nezumi’s arm.

On Nezumi’s lap, Pluto stood up. Her eyes were intent on Shion.

“It’s okay, Pluto, he’s saving me,” Nezumi told her.

“It’s even more experimental a drug than the cure was. Maybe it’ll kill you faster,” Shion said evenly, placing the cotton on the nightstand and lifting the syringe.

“Your Majesty.”

Shion eyes slid to his. His gaze was cool, emotionless.

“Don’t be mad at me. I can’t stand it,” Nezumi told him quietly.

“I can’t stand a lot of the things you do to me,” Shion said back.

“I know.”

Shion’s jaw flinched. He looked back at the syringe. “I’m doing it now.”

Nezumi nodded, and then he felt the pinch of the syringe’s needle entering his arm. He watched Shion push the lever down, then pull the syringe out.

“How long will it take to work?” Nezumi asked, while Shion swabbed his arm again and put on a band-aid.

“I don’t know, I haven’t used it before.”

“A guess?”

“I don’t know.”

“Any side effects?”

“I don’t know, Nezumi,” Shion said shortly, and just like that he was taking his empty syringe and leaving the room.

Pluto stood with two paws on Nezumi’s lap and two on his stomach and was leaning up to sniff the band-aid on his arm. Nezumi turned to Safu.

“He’s been like that since we found you passed out from your brain aneurism. He just shut down,” Safu told him.

“But I’m fine,” Nezumi reminded.

“He didn’t know that when we saw you unconscious with blood coming out of your ears. Even I thought you were dead.”

“And yet I’m perfectly recovered. From a fucking brain stroke. Shouldn’t that be enough to convince him that I’m not like his rats, I’m not like a normal person, I clearly can’t die, I can’t even suffer from an aneurism properly, and there was no reason to be worried in the first place?” Nezumi demanded.

Safu raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you should cut him some slack. What if you found him passed out with blood coming out his ears?”

“It’d be an entirely different scenario, seeing as Shion is a normal, fragile human being, not someone who’s proven to be obstinately immortal.”

Safu sighed. “I can see it’s no use trying to get you to feel a little empathy.”

Before Nezumi could think of a reply, Pluto started meowing in a way that was distinctly unfamiliar from all of her previous meows. Nezumi stared down at her to find that she still stood on her back legs, her two front paws bracing themselves now on his chest as she stared up at him. She continued to meow, more and more in earnest, it seemed.

“What’s going on with her?” Safu asked.

“What’s up, Plu?” Nezumi asked.

“She was yowling like a mad creature when we found you passed out,” Safu said above the meows, “but it wasn’t like this. It was loud and panicked, like she knew something bad had happened to you.”

Now, Pluto was not loud or panicked. She just seemed intent on communicating something and continued to meow in a way that made Nezumi think of a human’s speech, except that none of her sounds were words. It was the tone, he supposed, that made her monologue almost eerie to listen to.

After several seconds of her meowing, Safu started laughing, and Nezumi glanced at her, then back at Pluto, who continued on, seeming not to notice Safu.

“I don’t know what you’re telling me,” Nezumi told her, and she finally stopped.

Pluto _mrrowed_ once more, a long syllable of sound with the pitch upending at the close like a question, and Safu laughed again.

“Did you guys remember to feed her?” Nezumi asked, holding his hand out to Pluto, who sniffed it vigorously.

“I did. Shion was preoccupied, what with being convinced you were dying and conducting tests on you in an attempt to prove himself wrong.”

“Are you worried about me, Plu? I’ll be fine now, Shion gave me a magic drug.”

“It’s not magic. It’s a lot of hard work. You should remember that. He works his ass off for you. The kind of stuff he makes for you is groundbreaking science,” Safu said.

“I get that.”

Safu narrowed her eyes. “Do you? You have your magic healing powers, but Shion has to rely on his own work and research and intelligence to save your life. It makes it a whole lot more difficult, especially when part of you is scheming to kill yourself.”

“You know I don’t actually have magic healing powers,” Nezumi said, as Pluto clambered around his legs, sniffing him all over.

Safu shrugged. “Might as well call it magic. It’s the closest thing to magic there is.”

Pluto had padded to Nezumi’s feet and was making her way up now, sniffing along his legs, walking in between them and stumbling on the blanket.

“And I’m not scheming to kill myself,” Nezumi added.

“You’re not putting much effort into surviving. In the end, is there a difference?” Safu asked.

Nezumi didn’t bother responding. He was tired and content to let them fall into silence. They both watched Pluto creep up Nezumi’s thighs and sniff his waist, her nose pressing against his hospital gown as she climbed up his stomach and ribs to his chest.

Her face was warm against Nezumi’s neck, and he laughed at the feel of her whiskers.

“You’re tickling me, stupid cat,” he complained, still laughing, his hand under Pluto’s bottom so she wouldn’t tumble down his torso.

“If you don’t care about Shion, then think of how the cat would feel if you were dead. I think she might actually die without you.”

Nezumi didn’t bother replying. Pluto had climbed onto his shoulder now and was tipping her nose into Nezumi’s ear. He held perfectly still, letting her examine him.

He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he liked her obsession with him. It was strange and addictive to be the object of such faithful, unconditional fixation. No matter what Nezumi did to Pluto—insulted her, pushed her off his chest, shook her off his legs, shoved her with the side of his foot when she walked in his way—the cat never held a grudge. He could hide his insomnia, he could tempt his own death, he could want it, and Pluto wouldn’t fault him, even if he was threatening to abandon her, even if he was willing to break her heart.

*

To Nezumi, the fact that he slept a full ten hours each night for the three days Shion made him stay in the lab after giving him his new drug was proof enough that the drug had worked, but Shion still insisted on running tests before he was convinced as well.

After that, Shion let them both come home. He was still cool to Nezumi—most notably in the way Nezumi had not seen Shion smile since he’d found out Nezumi was planting the sleep tracker on him—and Nezumi wasn’t sure what to do about this.

Another change was in Pluto. While she still trailed Nezumi around the apartment and slept beside him, she no longer hissed when Shion or Safu touched Nezumi, nor did she lose her mind when Nezumi wasn’t in sight. Nor did she sleep over Nezumi’s heart.

“She’s not worried about you anymore. She can tell you’re not dying,” Shion said simply, when Nezumi mentioned his observations.

Nezumi was not fully convinced he’d ever been dying, and if he had been, he doubted a cat could sense such a thing. But it was strange to be free of Pluto’s persistent protection.

Still, he was more concerned with Shion’s behavior. Shion remained perfectly amicable in the standards of any normal person, but Nezumi’s standards were not of a normal person. He was used to Shion as someone with extreme emotions—giddiness contrasted with deep-set rage, dramatic proclamations alternated with loud laughter. And lust. He was used to fervid lust.

But Shion had stopped touching Nezumi—both sexually and casually. And he pulled away—gracefully, but still undeniably—when Nezumi touched him. For this reason, they did not have sex for three nights after returning home from the lab before Nezumi figured enough was enough.

He waited until the morning, a Sunday. He woke early as he always did but texted Karan letting her know he’d be late to the bakery. He drank coffee and read in the kitchen waiting for Shion, and then he finally heard the sounds of him waking—fumblings from the bedroom, then muted noises from the bathroom.

Finally, Shion appeared in the hallway, freezing at the doorway of the kitchen on sight of Nezumi on a stool.

“You’re not at the bakery,” he said.

“I want to talk to you. Sit down, I’ll get you coffee,” Nezumi said, sliding off his stool.

“I can get my coffee,” Shion said, walking into the kitchen without allowing Nezumi to argue, so Nezumi climbed back onto his stool.

He cupped his hands around his mug even though all the warmth had leaked out of it.

“You can start talking,” Shion said, pouring coffee from the carafe into a mug.

“I’ll wait.”

“For what?”

“Sit next to me,” Nezumi said, pointing to the stool beside him.

“I’m fine standing,” Shion said, then tipped his mug to his lips. He remained by the stove across the kitchen.

Nezumi released his mug, pressed his hands flat on either side of it. “I want you to yell at me,” he said.

“For what?” Shion asked back—calmly, not yelling.

“You’re mad at me. You should be. I put my sleep tracker on you so you wouldn’t know about my insomnia. I did it out of a wish that I’d die faster, as soon as I could, even if that meant leaving you after all you’ve given up for me. After you left your happy life with Rai for me. After I promised I’d give you a lifetime. After you worked for years on a cure for me. And because I hid my symptoms, it got bad enough that I had a brain aneurism. I can’t imagine how much that freaked you out. You’re mad at me for that. I know you are. So yell at me.”

Shion waited after Nezumi finished, as if giving him time to say more if he needed to, then spoke. “I don’t want to yell at you.”

“Yes, you do.”

Shion took another sip of his coffee. “Why don’t you yell at me?” he offered, after he finished his sip.

“Why should I do that?” Nezumi demanded. He’d wanted to speak calmly. He wanted to be the one who was calm, and he wanted Shion to be the one who was angry. That was how it was supposed to be. Shion deserved to be pissed, and Nezumi knew he deserved to be pissed at.

“I made a drug that almost killed you. I let you hope for your own death after you stopped letting yourself hope for over a hundred years. And then I made another drug that cured you and crushed that fleeting hope. So you should yell at me.”

Nezumi watched Shion carefully. It impressed him, really, Shion’s composure. The man was capable of extreme emotion, and to see him reign it in to teach Nezumi a lesson almost made Nezumi proud.

Nezumi contemplated actually yelling at him, seeing what good that would do, but he suspected it wouldn’t do much. He considered his other options, then settled on the one that was most appealing to him—he had always been selfish.

Nezumi slid off his stool again. He walked around the counter, then to Shion, who stood still and watched him. Nezumi knew the man was trying to keep his face expressionless, but he wasn’t quite succeeding. Hints of wariness crept into the crease between Shion’s eyebrows.

In front of Shion, Nezumi reached out and took Shion’s coffee mug. Shion didn’t protest, almost let it go too quickly so that Nezumi nearly dropped it. Nezumi placed the mug on the counter between the stovetop and the coffee maker. He turned to Shion again. Reached up again, this time to cup his hand around the side of Shion’s neck, and only now did Shion speak.

“What are you doing?” he asked, the wariness slipping into the previous calm of his voice as well.

“I’m yelling at you,” Nezumi told him as he leaned closer. He hadn’t kissed Shion since their anniversary. That incredible night. Shion had fallen asleep first, and Nezumi had placed the sleep tracker on his wrist, and he’d fallen asleep—worn out from Shion’s fucking—before he’d remembered to take it off again. He’d ruined everything.

If only Shion hadn’t fucked him for so long. If only Nezumi hadn’t been completely wrung out, exhausted from the way Shion touched him, the way Shion kissed him, the way Shion looked at him. If only Nezumi hadn’t been so exhausted he’d fallen asleep before he’d remembered to take back the tracker.

Then Shion would never have found out that Nezumi still had insomnia. Then Shion would never have worked on a drug to cure Nezumi. Then Shion would never have created that drug because the man was a genius, the man could do anything, he was amazing, he was incredible, there was no one like him. If only Shion hadn’t been so smart, if only he hadn’t had enough time—then Nezumi might be dead right now. If not dead, then he might be in front of the toilet vomiting right now. He might be just like those insomniac rats, vomiting and vomiting until he couldn’t breathe at all, suffocating himself with his own retches, dying while Shion watched him and couldn’t do a thing because Nezumi hadn’t given him the chance to because he’d remembered to put the sleep tracker back on his wrist because he hadn’t been exhausted because Shion hadn’t fucked him so hard, loved him so hard, made him feel more incredible than Nezumi had ever felt in his entire life, in a hundred and thirty whole years.

There wasn’t an inch between Nezumi and Shion’s lips. Nezumi could feel Shion’s breaths, slipping out the part of his lips, quick and unsteady, uncertain.

“I’m going to yell at you now,” Nezumi said quietly, his lips nearly brushing Shion, maybe brushing them a little. Nezumi wasn’t sure if what he felt was contact or just the air particles between their lips brushing together, too close to each other not to jostle and be felt as solid things.

“Okay,” Shion whispered.

When Nezumi kissed him, it was softly. Like a first kiss. Nezumi couldn’t remember his first kiss. He didn’t know anything about it, but he was certain it wouldn’t have been softly. It wouldn’t have been like this. It wouldn’t have been anything that mattered.

After just a second or so, Nezumi leaned back enough to look at Shion. “That’s for making me think I might die for the first time since I understood I couldn’t,” Nezumi told him.

Shion stared back, his eyes wide—like it was his first kiss, too.

Nezumi wasn’t sure with whom Shion’s first kiss had been. Someone at university, he guessed. Nezumi recalled Shion trying out dating apps, trying to get over his crush. He’d have wasted his first kiss on someone out of a desperation to get over his babysitter, his neighbor, his best friend.

What good were first kisses? Second kisses were the ones that mattered, the ones to make count. You were no longer nervous, no longer just trying to get that first kiss out of the way. You were more confident now, looking forward to it properly now.

Nezumi looked down from Shion’s eyes at his lips before leaning forward again, kissing him again—longer now, the way it was with second kisses. A little more solid, a little more pressure, a little more time.

Nezumi leaned back again, this time after several seconds. He looked up in time to see Shion’s eyelids flutter before opening.

“That’s for taking away the only chance to die I might ever have,” Nezumi said.

Nezumi didn’t know a thing about third kisses. He supposed they were much like second kisses, and much like fourth and fifth kisses just the same. Not so tentative. Used to it by now, but still with electricity. Still special, those third kisses—Nezumi guessed.

For their third kiss, Nezumi let his hand slip up Shion’s neck to cup his jaw in order to angle Shion’s head a little differently. When their lips met, it was more fully. And when their lips parted, it was to come together again. There was opening and closing of lips now. Not a shy kiss, that third one. Much more experienced, the third. Much deeper, in a way that spread past the lips to everywhere in the body. In a way that went past the skin and into the bloodstream, in a way that reached the heart and shook the pulse.

Third kisses had to end, though. Nezumi didn’t know much about them, but he knew that. So he leaned back again, leaving Shion breathing hard against Nezumi’s own wet mouth.

Nezumi licked his lips before speaking. “That’s for giving me another chance at a lifetime with you,” he said. He dropped his hand from Shion’s jaw. He stepped back from him. He let Shion decide what to do next.

Shion stared at him for what could have been an entire minute. He lifted his hand and touched his lips, and Nezumi wasn’t sure he was aware of doing it. He dropped his hand before he spoke. “Do you mean that?” he asked, and Nezumi felt himself smile, a small one, but it felt good, and Nezumi realized that for as long as Shion hadn’t smiled, neither had he.

“I mean it,” Nezumi promised. And he did mean it. He was grateful Shion had saved his life. Maybe he was disappointed, too, but he couldn’t help that, the part of him that wanted to die. He didn’t know if he’d ever be rid of that part of him, a permanent thing he’d carried with him for over a century.

But Shion had created a part of him that wanted to live. A part that grew every single day Nezumi had with this man. He wanted to live. Just a normal lifetime, and no longer than that, but no shorter either.

Shion continued to look at him. Then he looked at the floor between them, and then he looked up again. “Last night when you were at your play, I ate the rest of your mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

Nezumi squinted at the man. “That’s okay,” he said, after Shion said nothing else.

Shion shook his head. “It’s not. You should yell at me for it.”

Nezumi laughed, and Shion finally smiled then, the first time in too many days. “Since when did you get so funny, Your Majesty?”

“And I took all the cat hair from my clothes and put it in your underwear drawer,” Shion said.

Nezumi stepped closer to him again. “What else?”

“I can’t stand post-modernist literature,” Shion said, biting his lip in a failed attempt to hide his growing grin.

“I might yell at you for real,” Nezumi warned.

“It’s just random words. _Naked Lunch_ has no real plot or character de—”

Nezumi cut Shion’s laughing words off with a kiss. It wasn’t their fourth kiss. They’d had countless kisses each and countless kisses with each other. Wasn’t that even better?

When Nezumi couldn’t count them, they almost seemed infinite.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang! i'm finally FINALLY posting the last chap. obviously, the fic is not finished, and please see the note at the beginning of the very first chapter if you feel betrayed, as i warned you it was an unfinished fic. i think i said there were 37 chapters, but turns out i miscounted, and as you can see, there's only 36, so please don't be waiting for another.
> 
> thank you all so much for reading, those of you who made it to this point! maybe one day i'll continue the fic, but maybe not, and i hope either way you've enjoyed the ride.


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